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•King Richard III 



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English Classics, Etc., 

FOB 

Classes in English Literature, Reading, Grammar, etc. 

EDITED BY EMINENT ENGLISH AND AMEEICAN SCHOLABS. 

Each Volume contains a Sketch of the Author's Life, Prefatory and 
Explanatory Notes, etc., etc. 

These Volumes are thoroughly adapted for Schools in which English 
Literature forms a branch of study, or where a carefully-selected por- 
tion of some English Classic is selected for minute examination, or 
for supplementary reading matter. The notes are unusually full and 
exhaustive, occupying in many volumes nearly half the book. Ety- 
mology i: --■..**. more 
difficult w j i nth all 
the infon 
ciation of 
logical an 



No. 1 

" 2 

" 8 

" 4 

" 5 

" 6 

" 7 



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ii 14 

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LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 



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UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 



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philo- 



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24 



Macaulay's Armada and other Poems. 
Shakespeare's Merchant of Venice. (Selections from Acts 

and IV.) 
Goldsmith's Traveller. 
Hogg's Queen's Wake. 
Coleridge's Ancient Mariner. 
Addison's Sir Roger de Coverley. 
Gray's Elegy in a Country Churchyard. 
Scott's Lady of the Lake. (Canto I.) 
Shakespeare's As Tou Like It, etc. (Selections.) 
Shakespeare's King John and King Richard II. (Selections.) 
Shakespeare's King Henry IV., King Henry V., King Henry 

VI. (Selections.) 
Shakespeare's Henry VIII., and Julius Caesar. (Selections.) 
(CONTINUED.) 



ENGLISH CLASSICS-Continued, 

No. 25 Wordsworth's Excursion. (Book I.) 

" 26 Pope's Essay on Criticism. 

" 27 Spenser's Faerie Queene. (Cantos I. and IL) 

M 28 €owper's Task. (Book I. ) 

" 29 Milton's Comus. 

" 80 Tennyson's Enoch Arden. 

** 81 Irvine's Sketch Book. (Selections) 

** 82 Dickens' Christmas Carol. (Condensed.) 

" 88 Carlyle's Hero as a Prophet. 

" 84 Macaulay's Warren Hastings, (Condensed.) 

•' 85 Goldsmith's Vicar of Wakefield. (Condensed.) 

'* 86 Tennyson's The Two Voices and A Dream of Fair Women,, 

" 8? Memory Quotations. 

" 88 Cavalier Poets. 

M 89 Dryden's Alexander's Feast and McFleeknoe. 

" 40 Keats' The Eve of St. Agnes. 

" 41 Irving's Legend of Sleepy Hollow. 

" 42 Lamb's Tales from Shakespeare. 

" 48 Spencer's Philosophy of Style. 

" 44 De Qulncey's Joan of Arc. 

" 45 The Academic Orthoepist. 

u 46 Douglas' Rhetorical Training. 

" 4? Bryant's Thanatopsls, and Other Poems. 

" 48 Buskin's The Beautiful in Nature. (Selections.) 

" 49 Shakespearean Speaker. 

" 50 Johnson's The Vanity of Human Wishes, and London. 
Others in Preparation. From 82 to 64 Pages each, 16mo. 



In the growing study of English literature we see about the only 
solution of the question : How shall our boys and girls be trained to 
find delight in a higher range of reading ? And we insist that for 
classes in our public high schools this should be the prime motive of 
the teacher, and that all questions of literary and scholastic accom- 
plishment should be made subservient to it. 

And the first step towards really engaging our pupils in a study of 
English Classics that shall endure after school days are over is to put 
into their hands the actual text of some of the masterpieces, while the 
teacher is by to'illuminate and heighten the relish. 

For this purpose these are just the books. The notes are ample 
and scholarly, and bear throughout a remarkable uniformity in 
character and style.— The Schoolmaster. 

Published by CLARK & MAYNARD, New York. 



SHAKESPEARE'S 



King Richard III. 

WITH 

INTRODUCTION, NOTES, EXAMINATION PAPERS, AND 
PLAN OF PREPARATION. 




TCT 8 J 885 ' 

(selected.) V r /-,_. „<0~ 

By BRAINERD KELLOGG, " 

Professor of the English Language and Literature in the Brooklyn 
Collegiate and Polytechnic Institute, and author of a " Text- 
Book on Rhetoric," a " Text-Book on English Liter- 
ature'' and one of the authors of Reed & Kellogg' s 
" Graded Lessons in English,'' and "Higher 
Lessons in English." 

New York: 

CLARK & MAYNARD, Publishers, 

771 Broadway. 

1886. 






Shakespeare's Plays 



> 



WITH NOTES. 

Uniform in style and price with this volume. 

MERCHANT OF VENICE. 

KING HENRY V. 

AS YOU LIKE IT. 

JULIUS CAESAR. 

KING LEAR. 

MACBETH. 

TEMPEST. 

HAMLET. 

KING HENRY VIII. 

KING HENRY IV. (Part I. 

KING RICHARD III. 



Copyright, 1885, 
By CLARK & MAYNARD, 



EDITOR'S NOTE. 



The text here presented, adapted for use in mixed 
classes, has been carefully collated with that of six or seven 
of the latest and best editions. Where there was any dis- 
agreement, those readings have been adopted which 
seemed most reasonable and were supported by the best 
authority. 

Professor Meiklejohn's exhaustive notes form the sub- 
stance of those here used ; and his plan, as set forth in 
the " General Notice" annexed, has been carried out in 
these volumes. But as these plays are intended rather for 
pupils in school and college than for ripe Shakespearian 
scholars, we have not hesitated to prune his notes of what- 
ever was thought to be too learned for our purpose, or 
on other grounds was deemed irrelevant to it. The notes 
of other English editors have been freely incorporated. 

B, K, 



GENERAL NOTICE. 



" An attempt has been made in these new editions to 
interpret Shakespeare by the aid of Shakespeare himself. 
The Method of Comparison has been constantly employ- 
ed ; and the language used by him in one place has been 
compared with the language used in other places in simi- 
lar circumstances, as well as with older English and with 
newer English. The text has been as carefully and as 
thoroughly annotated as the text of any Greek or Latin 
classic. 

" The first purpose in this elaborate annotation is, of 
course the full working out of Shakespeare's meaning. 
The Editor has in all circumstances taken as much pains 
with this as if he had been making out the difficult and 
obscure terms of a will in which he himself was personally 
interested ; and he submits that this thorough excavation 
of the meaning of a really profound thinker is one of the 
very best kinds of training that a boy or girl can receive at 
school. This is to read the very mind of Shakespeare, and 
to weave his thoughts into the fibre of one's own mental 
constitution. And always new rewards come to the care- 
ful reader — in the shape of new meanings, recognition of 
5 



vi. 

thoughts he had before missed, of relations between the 
characters that had hitherto escaped him. For reading- 
Shakespeare is just like examining Nature ; there are no 
hollownesses, there is no scamped work, for Shakespeare 
is as patiently exact and as first-hand as Nature herself. 

"Besides this thorough working-out of Shakespeare's 
meaning, advantage has been taken of the opportunity to 
teach his English — to make each play an introduction to 
the English of Shakespeare. For this purpose copi- 
ous collections of similar phrases have been gathered from 
other plays ; his idioms have been dwelt upon ; his pecu- 
liar use of words ; his style and his rhythm. Some 
Teachers may consider that too many instances are given ; 
but, in teaching, as in everything else, the old French say- 
ing is true : Assez tfy a, sHl trop n'y a. The Teacher 
need not require each pupil to give him all the instances 
collected. If each gives one or two, it will probably be 
enough ; and, among them all, it is certain that one or two 
will stick in the memory. It is probable that, for those pu- 
pils who do not study either Greek or Latin, this close ex- 
amination of every word and phrase in the text of Shake- 
speare will be the best substitute that can be found for the 
study of the ancient classics. 

" It were much to be hoped that Shakespeare should 
become more and more of a study, and that every boy 
and girl should have a thorough knowledge of at least one 
play of Shakespeare before leaving school. It would be 
one of the best lessons in human life, without the chance 
of a polluting or degrading experience. It would also 
have the effect of bringing back into the too pale and for- 
mal English of modern times a large number of pithy and 



vigorous phrases which would help to develop as well as 
to reflect vigor in the characters of the readers. Shake- 
speare used the English language with more power than 
any other writer that ever lived — he made it do more and 
say more than it had ever done ; he made it speak in a 
more original way ; and his combinations of words are per- 
petual provocations and invitations to originality and to 
newness of insight." — J. M. D. Meiklejohn, M.A., 
Professor of the Theory, History, and Practice of Educa- 
tion in the University of St. Andrews. 



PLAN OF STUDY 



"perfect POSSESSION." 



To attain to the standard of "Perfect Posses- 
sion" the reader ought to have an intimate and 
ready knowledge of the following parts of the 
subject. (See opposite page.) 

The student ought, first of all, to read the play 
as a pleasure ; then to read it over again with his 
mind upon the characters and the plot ; and lastly, 
to read it for the meanings, grammar, etc. 

With the help of this scheme he can easily 
draw up for himself short examination papers 
(1) on each scene, (2) on each act, (3) on the 
whole play. (See page 197.) 



IX 

1. The Plot and Story of the Play. 

(a) The general plot ; 
(6) The special incidents. 

2. The Characters : 

Ability to give a connected account of all that 
is done and much of what is said by each 
character in the play. 

3. The Influence and Interplay of the Characters 

upon each Other. 

(a) Relation of A to B and of B to A ; 
(6) Relation of A to C and D. 

4. Complete Possession of the Language. 

(a) Meanings of words ; 

(6) Use of old words, or of words in an old 
meaning ; 

(c) Grammar ; 

(d) Ability to quote lines to illustrate a 

grammatical point. 

5. Power to Reproduce, or Quote. 

(a) What was said by A or B on a particular 

occasion ; 
(6) What was said by A in reply to B ; 

(c) What argument was used by C at a par- 

ticular juncture ; 

(d) A line in instance of an idiom or of a 

peculiar meaning. 

6. Power to Locate. 

(a) To attribute a line or statement to a cer- 
tain person on a certain occasion ; 
(6) To cap a line ; 
(c) To fill in the right word or epithet. 



Shakespeare's Grammar. 

Shakespeare lived at a time when the grammar and vocahulary of 
the English language were in a state of transition. Various pomts 
were not yet settled ; and so Shakespeare's grammar is not only 
somewhat different from our own but is by no means uniform in 
itself. In the Elizabethan age, ''Almost any part of speech can be 
used as any other part of speech. Au adverb can be used as a verb, 
'They askance their eyes;' as a noun, -the backward and abysm 
of time;' or as an adjective, ' a seldom pleasure.' Any noun, ad- 
jective, or neuter [iutrans.] verb can be used as an active [trans.] 
verb. You can ' happy ' your friend, ' malice ' or ' foot ' your en- 
emy, or ' fall ' an axe on his neck. An adjective can be used as 
an adverb; and you can speak and act 'easy,' 'free,' 'excel- 
lent ; ' or as a noun, and you can talk of 'fair' instead of 'beau- 
ty,' and ' a pale ' instead of ' a paleness.' Even the pronouns are 
not exempt from these metamorphos 'S. A ' he' is used for a man, 
and a lady is described by a gentleman as ' the fairest she he has yet 
beheld.' In the second place, every variety of apparent grammati- 
cal inaccuracy meets us. He for him, him for he : spoke and took for 
spoken and taken ; plural nominatives with singular verbs ; relatives 
omitted where they are now considered necessary ; unnecessary an- 
tecedents inserted ; shall for will, should for would, woxdd for wish ; 
10 omitted after '/ ought,'' inserted after '/ durst;'' double nega- 
tives- double comparatives ('more better,' &c.) and superlatives; 
such followed by which [or that], that by as, as used for as if; that 
tor so that ; and lastly some verbs apparently with two nominatives, 
and others without any nominative at all."— Dr. Abbott's Shakespe- 
rian Grammar. 

Shakespeare's Versification. 

Shakespeare's Plays are written mainly in what is known as un- 
rimed, or blank-verse ; but they contain a number of riming, and a 
considerable number of prose, lines. As a general rule, rime is 
much commoner in the earlier than in the later plays. Thus, Lovers 
Labor s Lost contains nearly 1,100 riming lines, while (if we except 
the songs) Winter's Tale has none. The Merchant of Venice has 
124. 

In speaking we lay a stress on particular syllables : this stress is 
called accent. When the words of a composition are so arranged 
that the accent recurs at regular intervals, the composition is said to 
be metrical or rhythmical. Rhythm, or Metre, is an embellishment 
of language which, though it does not constitute poetry itself, yet 
provides it with a suitably elegant dress ; and hence most modern 
poets have written in metre. In blank verse the lines consist usu- 



ally of ten syllables, of which the second, fourth, sixth, eighth, and 
tenth are accented. The line consists, therefore, of live parts, each 
of which contains an unaccented followed by an accented syllable, 
as in the word attend. Each of these five parts forms what is called 
afoot or measure ; and the five together form a pentameter. " Penta- 
meter "is a Greek word signifying "five measures." This is the 
usual form of a line of blank verse. But a long poem composed en- 
tirely of such lines would be monotonous, and for the sake of variety 
several important modifications have been introduced. 

(a) After the tenth syllable, one or two unaccented syllables are 
sometimes added ; as— 

" Me-thought | you said \ you nei | ther lend \ nor bor I row." 

(6) In any foot the accent may be shifted from the second to th« 
first syllable, provided two accented syllables do not come together. 

" Pluck' the | young suck' \ ing cubs' \from the' \ she bear'. \ " 

(c) In such words as "yesterday," "voluntary," "honesty," the 
syllables -day, -ta-, and ty falling in the place of the accent, are, 
for the purposes of the verse, regarded as truly accented. 

''''Bars' me I the right' \ of vol'- \ un-ta' I ry choos' \ ing.'''' 

(d) Sometimes we have a succession of accented syllables ; this 
occurs with moposyllabic feet only. 

" Why, now, blow wind, swell billow, and swim bark. 1 '' 

(e) Sometimes, but more rarely, two or even three unaccented 
syllables occupy the place of one ; as — 

"He says \ he does, | be-ing then \ most flat \ ter-ed.^ 

(f) Lines may have any number of feet from one to six. 

Finally, Shakespeare adds much to the pleasing variety of his 
blank verse by placing the pauses in different parts of the line 
(especially after the second or third foot\ instead of placing them 
all at the ends of lines, as was the earlier custom. 

N. B.— In some cases the rhythm requires that what we usually 
pronounce as one syllable shall be divided into two, asfl-er (fire), 
su-er (sure), mi-el /mile), &c. ; too-elve (twelve), jaw-ee (joy), &c. 
Similarly, she-on (-tion or -sion). 

It is very important to give the pupil plenty of ear-training by 
means of formal scansion. This will greatly assist him in his 
reading. 



INTRODUCTION 

TO 

KING RICHARD III 



The earliest known edition of the play is a quarto 
printed in 1597, under the title of The Tragedy of 
King Richard the Third. Subsequent editions, each 
printed from the one before it, appeared in 1598, 1602, 
1605, 1612, 1622, 1629, and 1634. The folio text of 1623 
contains a large number of minor readings which 
differ from the quartos, while several important pas- 
sages are omitted, and others are inserted in their place. 
The play is, moreover, one of the worst printed in 
the folio ; and the quartos, in many instances, supply 
the means of correcting the typographical errors. 
Which is on the whole the better text, and what is 
the relation of the one to the other are questions 
which have been much disputed, but will probably 
never be satisfactorily settled. 

The subject had been put upon the stage before, a 
Latin drama, Ricardns Tertius, having been written 
by Dr. Legge, and performed previously to 1583 ; and 
an English tragedy, The True Tragedie of Richard 
the Third, having appeared in print in 1594. 1 The 

1 Both were printed for the Shakespeare Society, by Mr. 
Barron Field, in 1844. 



INTRODUCTION. 11 

latter, Shakespeare may have seen ; but, if so, he used 
it but little. Richard III. is the great dramatist's 
first tragedy of undoubted personal authorship ; it is 
written in connection with Henry VI., and appears 
as its direct continuation. The source of this, as of all 
Shakespeare's historical plays, is Holinshed's Chron- 
icle, which is here largely taken from Sir Thomas 
More's History of Richard III. The dramatist, how- 
ever, did not consider it his duty to follow the his- 
torian very closely. The play opens with the im- 
prisonment of Clarence, in 1478, and the next scene 
goes back to the funeral of Henry VI., who died in 
May, 1471, seven years before. The startling scene 
between the Lady Anne and Richard over the dead 
body of the king — which even the genius of Shakes- 
peare could not make natural or probable — is wholly 
imaginary. Queen Margaret is also brought upon the 
stage at a time when she was in strict confinement. 
Shakespeare has also added greatly to the years of his 
hero, as Richard, born at Fotheringay in October, 
1462, was not quite thirty-three years when he fell 
fighting bravely and desperately on Bosworth Field. 
The description of his physical appearance is taken 
directly from the chroniclers, as well as the list of his 
atrocious crimes — ten in number. These are : the 
murder of Prince Edward, son of Henry VI. ; the 
murder of Henry himself; the murder of Clarence ; 
the execution, at Pomfret, of Rivers, Grey, and 
Vaughan ; the execution of Hastings : the murder of 
the young princes in the Tower; and finally, the 
murder of his own queen and cousin, the Lady Anne 



12 INTRODUCTION. 

Neville, whom he had espoused in his twentieth 
year. Now, good Sir Thomas More and the diligent 
chronicler Holinshed wrote under the fear or favor 
of the jealous Tudor dynasty, with scanty historical 
materials, and with strong prejudices. Richard did 
not murder Prince Edward, who seems to have been 
slain at the battle of Tewkesbury. Henry VI. was 
found lifeless in the Tower, and it is highly probable 
that this weak and sickly monarch had sunk under 
the sudden shock of utter disaster. Clarence was 
most likely the victim of his elder brother's hatred 
and vengeance. He had disputed Edward's legiti- 
macy, on the ground of their mother's alleged in- 
fidelity, and had been arraigned and condemned by 
both lords and commons, Edward himself appearing 
as an accuser. Hence the royal voluptuary had some 
motive to furnish the fatal butt of Malmsey, while 
Richard had no such pressing temptation. Richard, 
however, did put Hastings to death, his apology be- 
ing that Hastings and the queen were conspiring 
both against his authority as protector and against 
his life. He also cut off Rivers, Grey, and Vaughan, 
justified, as he thought, by reasons of state. Their 
deaths were necessary towards his own preservation, 
and the safety of the commonwealth and the old no- 
bility. It is certain that Buckingham and other 
powerful nobles hated the queen's faction, and the 
nation witnessed their overthrow without regret. As 
to Richard's having murdered his own queen, the 
accusation is wholly unsupported by evidence : 
Richard was strongly attached to Anne, and had no 



INTRODUCTION. 13 

conceivable interest in her death. The murder of the 
young princes, however, must stand as a foul, in- 
effaceable blot on his character. Sir Thomas More's 
minute and consistent narrative, backed by the uni- 
versal belief at the time, by the fact that Richard re- 
warded the men whom More names as the murderers, 
and by the subsequent defection of Buckingham and 
the other friends of Richard, leaves no room' for 
reasonable doubt of his guilt. The act was a revolt- 
ing breach of trust, a cruelty that outraged public 
feeling, and ultimately lost Richard both his crown 
and his life. But for this he would have been a pop- 
ular and powerful monarch. During his short reign 
of two years, he exerted himself to reform the laws, 
to extend commerce, and to civilize Ireland. He en- 
couraged architecture, and was a liberal patron of the 
gentle art of music. But, in order to secure his power, 
it appeared necessary that he should rid himself of his 
nephews ; so long as they lived, he was in danger. 
They were, indeed, confined in the Tower, but the 
queen-dowager and a strong faction were busy de- 
vising schemes for their liberation ; and the tyrant's 
plea, necessity, prevailed with the usurper over the 
dictates of humanity and the eternal laws of Nature 
and justice. 

None of Shakespeare's dramas have been more pop- 
ular than Richard III. There is great variety of ac- 
tion and bustle for the stage, and the play contains 
striking speeches and soliloquies — as the grand, ex- 
ultant speech of Richard at the commencement, 
Clarence's dream, Tyrrel's account of the murder of 



14 INTRODUCTION. 

the princes, the dream of Richard, and his warlike 
address to his army. But the chief source of interest 
and attraction is unquestionably the character of 
Richard, compounded of such various qualities, and 
so striking in all. All the other characters are sub- 
ordinated to this central figure, and within himself 
all other qualities of mind are subordinated to am- 
bition. This is quite in the manner of Marlowe, 
whose characteristic it was to embody in a character, 
and realize with terrific force, the workings of a 
single passion. Thus, in Tamburlane, he personified 
the lust of dominion ; in Faustus, the lust of for- 
bidden power and knowledge ; in The Jew of Malta, 
the lust of wealth and blood. Similarly, Shakes- 
peare has risked his whole play on the success of 
one figure ; but what a tremendous reality this de- 
monic figure has become ! The matchless usurper is 
equally successful in personating the saint and the 
sinner, the statesman and the soldier, the lover, the 
hypocrite, and the wit. His plastic and commanding 
intellect carries him through all, and even at the 
worst saves him from detestation. When the great, 
final struggle comes, and he is on his last battle-field, 
deserted by his chief followers, and haunted by 
ghastly dreams and specters — the avengers of his 
crimes — his native hardihood and bravery of soul 
burst forth, and, though defeated, he dies with the 
honors of a hero and a king. All great English actors 
— Burbage, Garrick, Cook, Kemble, and Edmund 
Kean — have tasked their utmost powers to personate 
Richard, 



EXTRACTS 



HALL AND HOLINSHED. 



The following extracts from Hall and Holinshed 
will show how closely Shakespeare followed the old 
chroniclers in writing this drama : 

CHARACTER OF RICHARD, DUKE OF GLOSTER. 

None evil captain was he in the war, as to which his 
disposition was more meetly than for peace. Sundry 
victories had he, and sometimes overthrows, but 
never on default, as for his own person, either of 
hardiness or politic order. Free was he called of dis- 
pense, and somewhat above his power liberal ; with 
large gifts he got him unsteadfast friendship, for 
which he was fain to pill and spoil in other places, 
and got him steadfast hatred. He was close and 
secret, a deep dissembler, lowly of countenance,, ar- 
rogant of heart, outwardly companiable where he in- 
wardly hated, not letting to kiss whom he thought to 
kill, despitious and cruel, not for evil will ajway, bu 



16 INTRODUCTION. 

oftener for ambition, and either for the surety or in- 
crease of his estate. Friend and foe was muchwhat 
indifferent, where his advantage grew ; he spared no 
man's death whose life withstood his purpose. He 
slew with his own hands King Henry VI., being 
prisoner in the Tower, as men constantly said, and 
that without commandment or knowledge of the 
king, which would undoubtedly, if he had intended 
that thing, have appointed that butcherly office to 
some other than his own born brother. Some wise 
men also ween, that his drift, covertly conveyed, 
lacked not in helping forth his brother of Clarence to 
his death, which he resisted openly, howbeit some- 
what (as men deemed) more faintly than he that were 
heartily minded to his wealth. And they that thus 
deem, think that he long time in King Edward's life 
forethought to be king, in case that the king his 
brother (whose life he looked that evil diet should 
shorten) should happen to decease (as indeed he did) 
while his children were young. And they deem that 
for this intent he was glad of his brother's death, the 
Duke of Clarence, whose life must needs have hin- 
dered him so intending, whether the same Duke of 
Clarence had kept him true to his nephew, the young 
king, or enterprised to be king himself. But of all this 
point is there no certainty ; and whoso divineth upon 
conjectures, may as well shoot too far as too short. 

ON TAKING SANCTUARY. 

Where a man, quoth the Duke of Buckingham, is 
by lawful means in peril, there needeth he the tuition 



INTR OB UCTION. 17 

of some special privilege, which is the only ground 
and cause of all sanctuaries ; from which necessity 
this noble prince is far, whose love to his king, nature, 
and kindred proveth ; whose innocency to all the 
world his tender youth proveth ; and so sanctuary as 
for him neither none he needeth, nor also none can 
have. Men come not to sanctuary as they come to 
baptism, to require it by their godfathers ; he must 
ask it himself that must have it; and reason, sithe no 
man hath cause to have it but whose conscience of 
his own fault maketh him fain need to require it. 
What will then hath yonder babe, which if he had 
discretion to require it, if need were, I daresay would 
now be right angry with them that keep him there. 
And if nobody may be taken out of sanctuary that 
sayeth that he will bide there, then if a child will 
take sanctuary because he feareth to go to school, his 
master must let him alone. And as simple as that 
sample is, yet is there less reason in our case than in 
that, for therein, though it be a childish fear, yet is 
there at the leastwise some fear, and herein is there 
none at all. And verily, I have often heard of sanc- 
tuary men, but I never heard erst of sanctuary chil- 
dren ; and therefore, as for the conclusion of my 
mind, whoso may have deserved to need it, if they 
think it for their surety, let them keep it. But he 
can be no sanctuary man that neither hath wisdom to 
desire it, nor malice to deserve it. And he that taketh 
one out of sanctuary to do him good, I say plainly 
that he breaketh no sanctuary. 



18 INTRODUCTION. 

lord Hastings. (See Act III. Scene 2.) 
A marvellous case it is to hear either the warnings 
that he should have voided, or the tokens of that he 
could not void. For the next night before his [Hast- 
ings'] death, the Lord Stanley sent to him a trusty- 
messenger at midnight, in all the haste, requiring 
him to rise and ride away with him, for he was 
disposed utterly no longer for to abide, for he had 
a fearful dream, in the which him thought that a 
boar with his tusks so rased them both by the 
heads, that the blood ran about both their should- 
ers ; and, for as much as the protector gave the 
boar for his cognizance, he imagined that it should 
be he. This dream made such a fearful impression 
in his heart that he was thoroughly determined no 
longer to tarry, but had his horse ready, if the Lord 
Hastings would go with him, so that they would ride 
so far that night that they should be out of danger by 
the next day. Ah ! good lord, quoth the Lord Hast- 
ings to the messenger, leaneth my lord thy master 
so much to such trifles, and hath such faith in dreams, 
which either his own fear phantasieth, or do rise in 
the night's rest by reason of the day's thought ? Tell 
him it is plain witchcraft to believe in such dreams, 
which if they were tokens of things to come, why 
thinketh he not that we might as likely make them 
true by our going, if we were caught and brought 
back (as friends fail fliers) ; for then had the boar a 
cause likely to rase us with his tusks, as folks that 
fled for some falsehood. Wherefore, either is there 
peril or none is there indeed ; or, if any be, it is rather 



INTR OB UCTION. 19 

in going than abiding. And if we should needs fall 
in peril one way or other, yet had I liefer that men 
should say it were by other men's falsehood than 
think it were either our own fault or faint, feeble 
heart ; and therefore go to thy master, and commend 
me to him, and say that I pray him to be merry and 
have no fear, for I assure him I am as sure of the 
man he wotteth of as I am sure of mine own hand. 
God send grace, quoth the messenger, and so de- 
parted. Certain it is also that in riding toward the 
Tower, the same morning in which he was beheaded, 
his horse that he was accustomed to ride on stumbled 
with him twice or thrice almost to the falling ; which 
thing, although it happeth to them daily to whom no 
mischance is toward, yet hath it been, as an old, evil 
token, observed as a going toward mischief. Now 
this that followeth was no warning but an envious 
scorn. The same morning, ere he was up from his 
bed, there came to him Sir Thomas Haward, son to 
the Lord Haward (which lord was one of the priviest 
of the lord protector's council and doing), as it were 
of courtesy to accompany him to the council, but of 
truth sent by the lord protector to haste him hither- 
ward. 

This Sir Thomas, while the Lord Hastings staid a 
while communing with a priest whom he met in the 
Tower Street, brake the lord's tale, saying to him 
merely, What, my lord ! I pray you come on ; where- 
fore talk you so long with that priest ? you have no 
need of a priest yet ; and laughed upon him, as 
though he would say, You shall have need of one 



20 INTRODUCTION. 

soon. But little wist the other what he meant (but or 
[ere] night these words were well remembered by them 
that heard them) ; so the true Lord Hastings little 
mistrusted, and was never merrier, nor thought his 
life in more surety in all his days, which thing is 
often a sign of change ; but I shall rather let any- 
thing pass me than the vain surety of man's mind so 
near his death ; for upon the very Tower wharf, so 
near the place where his head was off so soon after as 
a man might well cast a ball, a pursuivant of his own, 
called Hastings, met with him, and of their meeting in 
that place he was put in remembrance of another time 
in which it happened them [to] meet before together 
in the place, at which time the Lord Hastings had 
been accused to King Edward by the Lord Rivers, 
the queen's brother, insomuch that he was for a 
while, which lasted not long, highly in the king's in- 
dignation. As he now met the same pursuivant in 
the same place, the jeopardy so well passed, it gave 
him great pleasure to talk with him thereof with 
whom he had talked in the same place of that matter, 
and therefore he said, Ah, Hastings, art thou remem- 
bered when I met thee here once with an heavy 
heart? Yea, my lord, quoth he, that I remember 
well, and thanked be God they gat no good nor you 
no harm thereby. Thou wouldst say so, quoth he, if 
thou knewest so much as I do, which few know yet, 
and more shall shortly. That meant he, that the 
Karl Rivers and the Lord Richard and Sir Thomas 
Vaughan should that day be beheaded at Pomfret, 
as they were indeed ; which act he wist well should 



INTRODUCTION. 21 

be done, but nothing ware that the axe hung so near 
his own head. In faith man, quoth he, I was never 
so sorry, nor never stood in so great danger of my 
life, as I did when thou and I met here ; and lo ! the 
world is turned now ; now stand mine enemies in the 
danger, as thou mayest hap to hear more hereafter, 
and I never in my life merrier, nor never in so great 
surety. 

DEATH OF HASTINGS. 

Many lords assembled in the Tower, and there sat 
in council, devising the honourable solemnity of the 
king's coronation, of which the time appointed then 
so near approached that the pageants and subtleties 
were in making day and night at Westminster, and 
much victuals killed therefore that afterwards was 
cast away. These lords so sitting together, com- 
muning of this matter, the protector came in amongst 
them, first about nine of the clock, saluting them 
courteously, and excusing himself that he had been 
from them so long, saying merely that he had been a 
sleeper that day. After a little talking with them, he 
said unto the Bishop of Ely : My lord, you have very 
good strawberries at your garden in Holborne ; I re- 
quire you let us have a mess of them. Gladly, my 
lord, quoth he ; would God I had some better thing as 
ready to your pleasure as that. And therewithal, in 
all the haste he sent his servant for a mess of straw- 
berries. The protector set the lords fast in commun- 
ing, and thereupon praying them to spare him for 



22 INTRODUCTION. 

a little while departed thence. And soon after one 
hour, between ten and eleven, he returned into the 
chamber amongst them, all changed, with a wonder- 
ful sour, angry countenance, knitting the brows, 
frowning, and fretting, and gnawing on his lips, and 
so sat him down in his place ; all the lords were 
much dismayed, and sore marvelled at this manner 
of sudden change, and what thing should him ail. 
Then when he had sitten still awhile, thus he began : 
What were they worthy to have that compass and 
imagine the destruction of me, being so near of blood 
unto the king, and protector of his royal person and 
his realm. At this question, all the lords sat sore as- 
tonied, musing much by whom this question should 
be meant, of which every man wist himself clear. 
Then the Lord Chamberlain, as he that for the love 
between them thought he might be boldest with him, 
answered and said, That they were Avorthy to be 
punished as heinous traitors, whatsoever they were. 
And all the others affirmed the same. That is, quoth 
he, yonder sorceress, my brother's wife, and other 
with her, meaning the queen. At these words many 
of the other lords were greatly abashed that favored 
her. But the Lord Hastings was in his mind better 
content that it was moved by her, than by any other 
whom he loved better. Albeit his heart somewhat 
grudged that he was not afore made of council in this 
matter, as he was of the taking of her kindred and of 
their putting to death, which were by his assent be- 
fore devised to be beheaded at Pontefract that self- 
same day ; in which he was not ware it was by other 



INTRODUCTION. 23 

devised that he himself should be beheaded the same 
day at London. Then said the protector : Ye shall 
all see in what wise that sorceress, and that other 
witch of her council, Shore's wife, with their affinity, 
have by their sorcery and witchcraft wasted my 
body. And therewith he plucked up his doublet 
sleeve to his elbow upon his left arm, where he 
showed a weerish, withered arm, and small, as it was 
never other. Hereupon every man's mind sore mis- 
gave them, well perceiving that this matter was but a 
quarrel. For they well wist that the queen was too 
wise to go about any such folly. And also if she 
would, yet would she, of all folk, least make Shore's 
wife of her council, whom of all women she most 
hated, as that concubine whom the king her hus- 
band had most loved. And also no man was there 
present but well knew that his arm was ever such 
since his birth. Natheless the Lord Chamberlain 
(which from the death of King Edward kept Shore's 
wife, on whom he somewhat doted in the king's life, 
saving, as it is said, that he a while forbare her of rev- 
erence towards the king, or else of a certain kind of 
fidelity to his friend) answered and said : Certainly, 
my lord, if they have so heinously done, they be 
worthy of heinous punishment. What, quoth the 
protector, thou servest me I ween with ifs and with 
ands ; I tell thee they have so done, and that I will 
make good on thy body, traitor. And therewith, as 
in a great anger, he clapped his fist upon the board a 
great rap. At which token one cried treason without 
the chamber. Therewith a door clapped, and in come 



24 INTR OD UCTION. 

there, rushing, men in harness, as many as the cham- 
ber might hold. And anon the protector said to the 
Lord Hastings, I arrest thee, traitor. What, me, my 
lord? quoth he. Yea, thee, traitor, quoth the pro- 
tector. And another let fly at the Lord Stanley, 
which shrunk at the stroke, and fell under the table, 
or else his head had been cleft to the teeth ; for, as 
shortly as he shrank, yet ran the blood about his 
ears. Then were they all quickly bestowed in divers 
chambers, except the Lord Chamberlain whom the 
protector bade speed and shrive him a pace, for by 
Saint Paul, quoth he, I will not to dinner till I see 
thy head off. It booted him not ask why, but heavily 
took a priest at adventure, and made ashort shrift, for 
a longer would not be suffered, the protector made so 
much haste to dinner, which he might not go to until 
this were done, for saving of his oath. So he was 
brought forth to the green beside the chapel within 
the Tower, and his head laid down upon a long log 
of timber, and there stricken off, and afterward his 
body with the head interred at Windsor beside the 
body of King Edward, both whose souls our Lord 
pardon. 

CONDUCT OF GLOSTER AND BUCKINGHAM. 

Now flew the' fame of this lord's death through the 
city and farther about, like the wind in every man's 
ear ; but the protector immediately after dinner, in- 
tending to set some colour upon the matter, sent in all 
haste for many substantial men out of the city into 



INTRODVCTION. 25 

the Tower, and at their coining himself with the Duke 
of Buckingham stood harnessed in old evil-favoured 
briganders, such as no man would ween that they 
would have vouchsafed to have put on their backs, 
except some sudden necessity had constrained them. 
Then the lord protector showed them that the Lord 
Hastings and other of his conspiracy had contrived 
to have suddenly destroyed him and the Duke of 
Buckingham there the same day in counsel, and 
what they intended farther was yet not well known ; 
of which their treason, he had never knowledge be- 
fore ten of the clock the same forenoon, which sudden 
fear drave them to put on such harness as came next to 
their hands for their defence, and so God help them ! 
that the mischief turned upon them that would have 
done it ; and thus he required them to report. Every 
man answered fair, as though no man mistrusted the 
matter, which of truth no man believed. 

PROPOSED MARRIAGE WITH THE 
PRINCESS ELIZABETH. 

There came into his ungracious mind a thing not 
only detestable to be spoken of in the remembrance 
of man but much more cruel and abominable to be 
put in execution ; for, when he resolved in his waver- 
ing mind how great a fountain of mischief toward 
him should spring if the Earl of Richmond should be 
advanced to the marriage of his neice, (which thing 
he heard say by the rumour of the people that no 
small number of wise and witty personages enter- 



26 INTRODUCTION. 

prised to compass and bring to conclusion), he clearly 
determined to reconcile to his favour his brother's 
wife, Queen Elizabeth, either by fair words or liberal 
promises, firmly believing, her favour once obtained, 
that she would not stick to commit and lovingly 
credit to him the rule and governance both of her and 
her daughters ; and so by that means the Earl of 
Richmond of the affinity of his neice should be ut- 
terly defrauded and beguiled. And if no ingenious 
remedy could be otherwise invented to save the in- 
numerable mischiefs which were even at hand and 
like to fall, if it should happen Queen Anne his wife 
to depart out of this present world, then he himself 
would rather take to wife his cousin and neice, the 
Lady Elizabeth, than for lack of that affinity the 
whole realm should run to ruin ; as who said, that if 
he once fell from his estate and dignity, the ruin of the 
realm must needs shortly ensue and follow. Where- 
fore he sent to the queen, being in sanctuary, clivers 
and often messages, which first should excuse and 
purge him of all things before against her attempted 
or procured, and after should so largely promise pro- 
motions innumerable and benefits, not only to her, 
but also to her son, Lord Thomas Marquis of Dorset, 
that they should bring her, if it were possible, into 
some wan-hope, or, as some men say, into a fool's 
paradise. The messengers, being men both of wit 
and gravity, so persuaded the queen with great and 
pregnant reasons, then with fair and large promises, 
that she began somewhat to relent and to give to them 
no deaf ear, insomuch that she faithfully promised to 



INTRODUCTION. 27 

submit and yield herself fully and frankly to the 
king's will and pleasure. 

BATTLE OF BOSWOETH FIELD. 

In the mean season King Richard (which was ap- 
pointed now to finish his last labour by the very 
divine justice and providence of God, which called 
him to condign punishment for his scelerate merits 
and mischievous deserts) marched to a place meet for 
two battles to encounter, by a village called Bosworth, 
not far from Leicester, and there he pitched his field, 
refreshed his soldiers, and took his rest. The fame 
went that he had the same night a dreadful and a 
terrible dream ; for it seemed to him, being asleep, 
that he saw divers images like terrible devils, which 
pulled and hauled him, not suffering him to take any 
quiet or rest. The which strange vision not so sud- 
denly strake his heart with a sudden fear, but it 
stuffed his head and troubled his mind with many 
dreadful and busy imaginations ; for incontinent 
after, his heart being also damped, he prognosticated 
before the doubtful chance of the battle to come, not 
using the alacrity and mirth of mind and of counte- 
nance as he was accustomed to do before he came to- 
ward the battle. And, lest that it might be suspected 
that he was abashed for fear of his enemies, and for 
that cause looked so piteously, he recited and de- 
clared to his familiar friends in the morning his 
wonderful vision and terrible dream. 

Between both armies there was a great morasa, 
which the Earl of Richmond left on his right hand 



28 INTRODUCTION. 

for this intent, that it should be on that side a defence 
for his part ; and in so doing he had the sun at his 
back and in the face of his enemies. When King 
Richard saw the earl's company was passed the 
morass, he commanded with all haste to set upon 
them ; then the trumpets blew and the soldiers 
shouted, and the king's archers courageously let fly 
their arrows : the earl's bowmen stood not still, but 
paid them home again. The terrible shot once passed, 
the armies joined and came to hand-strokes, where 
neither sword nor bill was spared: at which en- 
counter the Lord Stanley joined with the earl. The 
Earl of Oxford in the mean season, fearing lest while 
his company was fighting they should be compassed 
and circumvented with the multitude of his enemies, 
gave commandment in every rank that no man should 
be so hardy as to go above ten foot from the standard ; 
which commandment once known, they knit them- 
selves together, and ceased a little from fighting. The 
adversaries, suddenly abashed at the matter, and mis- 
trusting some fraud or deceit, began also to pause, 
and left striking, and not against the wills of many, 
which had liefer had the king destroyed than saved, 
and therefore they fought very faintly or stood still. 
The Earl of Oxford, bringing all his band together on 
the one part, set on his enemies freshly. Again, the 
adversaries perceiving that, placed their men slender 
and thin before, and thick and broad behind, begin- 
ning again hardily the battle. While the two for- 
wards thus mortally fought, each intending to van- 
quish and convince the other, King Richard was 



INTRODUCTION. 29 

admonished by his explorators and espials that the 
Earl of Richmond, accompanied with a small num- 
ber of men of arms, was not far off ; and, as he ap- 
proached and marched toward him, he perfectly 
knew his personage by certain demonstrations and 
tokens which he had learnt and known of other ; and, 
being inflamed with ire and vexed with outrageous 
malice, he put his spurs to his horse and rode out of 
the side of the range of his battle, leaving the avant- 
gardes fighting, and like a hungry lion ran with spear 
in rest toward him. The Earl of Richmond per- 
ceived well the king furiously coming toward him, 
and, by cause the whole hope of his wealth and pur- 
pose was to be determined by battle, he gladly 
proffered to encounter with him body to body and 
man to man. King Richard set on so sharply at the 
first brunt that he overthrew the earl's standard and 
slew Sir William Brandon, his standard-bearer (which 
was father to Sir Charles Brandon, by King Henry 
the Eighth created Duke of Suffolk), and matched 
hand to hand with Sir John Cheinye, a man of great 
force and strength, which would have resisted him, 
and the said John was by him manfully overthrown, 
and so he making open passage by dint of sword as 
he went forward, the Earl of Richmond withstood his 
violence and kept him at the sword's point without 
advantage longer than his companions other thought 
or judged ; which, being almost in despair of victory, 
were suddenly recomforted by Sir William Stanley, 
which came to succours with three thousand tall men, 
at which very instant King Richard's men were 



30 INTRODUCTION. 

driven back and fled, and he himself, manfully fight- 
ing in the middle of his enemies, was slain and 
brought to his death as he worthily had deserved. 

Of the nobility were slain John Duke of Norfolk, 
which was warned by divers to refrain from the field 
insomuch that the night before he should set forward 
toward the king one wrote on his gate : 

"Jack of Norfolk, be not too bold, 
For Dickon thy master is bought and sold." 



DRAMATIS PERSONS. 



King Edward the Fourth. 

Edward, Prince of Wales, afterwards King Ed- 
ward V. 

Richard, Duke op York, son to the king. 

George, Duke of Clarence, brother to the king. 

Richard, Duke of Gloster, brother to the king, and 
afterwards King Richard III. 

A Young Son of Clarence. 

Henry, Earl of Richmond, afterwards King 
Henry VII. 

Cardinal Bouchier, archbishop of Canterbury. 

Thomas Rotherham, archbishop of York. 

John Morton, bishop) of Ely. 

Duke of Buckingham. 

Duke of Norfolk. 

Earl of Surrey, his son. 

Earl Rivers, brother to King Edward's queen. 

Marquis of Dorset and Lord Grey, her sons. 

Earl of Oxford. 

Lord Hastings. 

Lord Stanley. 

Lord Lovel. 

Sir Thomas Vaughan. 

Sir Richard Ratcliff. 

Sir William Catesby. 

Sir James Tyrrel. 

Sir James Blunt. 

Sir Walter Herbert. 



32 DRAMATIS PERSON JE. 

Sir Robert Beakenbury, lieutenant of the Tower. 
Christopher Urswick, a priest. 
Another Priest. 

Lord Mayor of London. Sheriff of "Wiltshire. 
Elizabeth, queen to King Edward IV. 
Margaret, widow to King Henry VI. 
Duchess of York, mother to King Edward IV., 
Clarence, and Gloster. 

Lady Anne, widow to Edward, Prince of Wales, son 
to King Henry VI.; afterwards married to the 
Duke of Gloster. 

A Young Daughter of Clarence. 
Lords, Attendants, Two Gentlemen, a Pursuivant, 
Scrivener, Citizens, Murderers, Messengers, 
Soldiers, etc. 

SCENE— England. 



Kino Richard III. 



ACT I. 

SCENE I.— London. A Street. 
Enter Gloster. 

Gloster. Now is the winter of our discontent 
Made glorious summer by this sun of York ; 
And all the clouds that lower' d upon our house 
In the deep bosom of the ocean buried. 
Now are our brows bound with victorious wreaths ; 5 
Our bruised arms hung up for monuments ; 
Our stern alarums chang'd to merry meetings ; 
Our dreadful marches to delightful measures. 
Grini-visag'd War hath smooth' d his wrinkled 

front ; 
And now, instead of mounting barbed steeds IO 

To fright the souls of fearful adversaries, 
He capers nimbly in a lady's chamber 
To the lascivious pleasing of a lute. 
But I, that am not shap'd for sportive tricks, 
Nor made to court an amorous looking-glass ; 1 5 

I, that am rudely stamp' d, and want love's majesty 
To strut before a wanton, ambling nymph ; 
I, that am curtail'd of this fair proportion, 
Cheated of feature by dissembling nature, 
Deform'd, unfinish'd, sent before my time 20 

Into this breathing world scarce half made up, — 
And that so lamely and unfashionable 
That dogs bark at me as I halt by them ; — 



34 KING RICHARD III. [act i. 

Why, I, in this weak, piping time of peace, 

25 Have no delight to pass away the time, 
Unless to spy my shadow in the sun, 
And descant on mine own deformity : 
And, therefore, since I cannot prove a lover 
To entertain these fair well-spoken days, 

30 1 am determined to prove a villain 

And hate the idle pleasures of these days. 
Plots have I laid, inductions dangerous, 
By drunken prophecies, libels, and dreams, 
To set my brother Clarence and the king 

35 In deadly hate the one against the other : 
And, if King Edward be as true and just 
As I am subtle, false, and treacherous, 
This day should Clarence closely be mew'd up, 
About a prophecy, which says that G 

40 Of Edward's heirs the murderer shall be. 

Dive, thoughts, down to my soul : — here Clarence 
comes. 

Enter Clarence, guarded, and Bkakenbuey. 

Brother, good-day. What means this armed guard 
That waits upon your grace ? 

Clarence. His majesty, 

Tendering my person's safety, hath appointed 
45 This conduct to convey me to the Tower. 
Oloster. Upon what cause ? 

Clarence. Because my name is George. 

Gloster. Alack, my lord, that fault is none of 
yours ; 
He should, for that, commit your godfathers : 
O, belike his majesty hath some intent 
50 That you shall be new christen 'd in the Tower. 
But what 's the matter, Clarence? may I know? 
Clarence. Yea, Richard, when I know ; for I 
protest 



sc. i.] KING RICHARD III. 35 

As yet I do not : but, as I can learn, 

He hearkens after prophecies and dreams ; 

And from the cross-row plucks the letter G, 55 

And says a wizard told him that by G 

His issue disinherited should be ; 

And, for my name of George begins with G, 

It follows in his thought that I am he : 

These, as I learn, and such-like toys as these 60 

Have mov'd his highness to commit me now. 

Oloster. Why, this it is when men are rul'd by 
women : 
'Tis not the king that sends you to the Tower ; 
My Lady Grey his wife, Clarence, 'tis she 
That tempers him to this extremity. 65 

Was it not she and that good man of worship, 
Anthony Woodville, her brother there, 
That made him send Lord Hastings to the Tower, 
From whence this present day he is deliver' d? 
We are not safe, Clarence ; we are not safe. 70 

Clarence. By heaven, I think there is no man 
secure 
But the queen's kindred, and night-walking heralds 
That trudge betwixt the king and Mistress Shore. 
Heard you not what an humble suppliant 
Lord Hastings was to her for his delivery? 75 

Oloster. Humbly complaining to her deity 
Got my lord chamberlain his liberty. 
I'll tell you what, — I think it is our way, 
If we will keep in favor with the king, 
To be her men and wear her livery : 80 

The jealous, o'er-worn widow and herself, 
Since that our brother dubb'd them gentlewomen, 
Are mighty gossips in this monarchy. 

Brakenbury. I beseech your graces both to par- 
don me ; 
His majesty hath straitly given in charge 85 



36 KING RICHARD III. [act i. 

That no rnan shall have private conference, 
Of what degree soever, with his brother. 
Gloster. Even so ; an 't please your worship, 
Brakenbury, 
You may partake of anything we say : 
90 We speak no treason, man ; we say the king 
Is wise and virtuous, and his noble queen 
Well struck in years, fair, and not jealous : 
We say that Shore's wife hath a pretty foot, 
A cherry lip, a bonny eye, a passing pleasing 
tongue : 
95 And that the queen's kin are made gentlefolks: 
How say you, sir? can you deny all this? 
Brakenbury. With this, my lord, myself have 

naught to do. 
Gloster. Naught to do with Mistress Shore ! I 
tell thee, fellow, 
He that doth naught with her, excepting one, 
100 Were best to do it secretly, alone. 

Brakenbury. What one, my lord ? 
Gloster. Her husband, knave : wouldst thou be- 
tray me ? 
Brakenbury. I beseech your grace to pardon me ; 
and, withal, 
Forbear your conference with the noble duke. 
105 Clarence. We know thy charge, Brakenbury, 
and will obey. 
Gloster. We are the queen's abjects, and must 
obey. 
Brother, farewell : I will unto the king ; 
And whatsoe'er you will employ me in, 
Were it to call King Edward's widow sister, 
1 10 I will perform it to enfranchise you. 

Meantime, this deep disgrace in brotherhood 
Touches me deeper than you can imagine. 

Clarence. I know it pleaseth neither of us well. 



sc. i.] KING RICHARD III. 37 

Gloster. Well, your imprisonment shall not be 
long; 
I will deliver yon, or lie for you : 115 

Meantime, have patience. 

Clarence. I must perforce ; farewell. 

[Exeunt Clarence, Brakenbuky, and Guard. 

Gloster. Go, tread the path that thou shalt ne'er 
return, 
Simple, plain Clarence ! I do love thee so 
That I will shortly send thy soul to heaven, 
If heaven will take the present at our hands. 1 20 

But who comes here ? the new-deliver'd Hastings? 

Enter Hastings. 

Hastings. Good time of day unto my gracious 

lord ! 
Gloster. As much unto my good lord chamber- 
lain ! 
Well are you welcome to the open air. 
How hath your lordship brook'd imprisonment? 125 
Hastings. With patience, noble lord, as prisoners 
must : 
But I shall live, my lord, to give them thanks 
That were the cause of my imprisonment. 

Gloster. No doubt, no doubt ; and so shall Clar- 
ence too ; 
For they that were your enemies are his, 1 30 

And have prevail'd as much on him as you. 
Hastings. More pity that the eagle should be 
mew'd, 
While kites and buzzards prey at liberty. 
Gloster. What news abroad ? 

Hastings. No news so bad abroad as this at home; 135 
The king is sickly, weak, and melancholy, 
And his physicians fear him mightily. 



38 KING RICHARD III. [act i. 

Oloster. Now, by St. Paul, this news is bad in- 
deed. 
O, he hath kept an evil diet long, 
140 And overmuch consum'd his royal person ; 
'Tis very grievous to be thought upon. 
What, is he in his bed ? 

Hastings. He is. 

Oloster. Go you before, and I will follow you. 

\_Exit Hastings. 
He cannot live, I hope ; and must not die 
145 Till George be pack'd with posthorse up to heaven. 
I '11 in to urge his hatred more to Clarence, 
With lies well steel' d with weighty arguments ; 
And, if I fail not in my deep intent, 
Clarence hath not another day to live : 
1 50 Which done, God take King Edward to his mercy, 
And leave the world for me to bustle in ! 
For then I '11 marry Warwick's youngest daughter. 
What though I kifl'd her husband and her father? 
The readiest way to make the wench amends 
155 Is to become her husband and her father : 
The which will I ; not all so much for love 
As for another secret, close intent, 
By marrying her which I must reach unto. 
But yet I run before my horse to market : 
1 60 Clarence still breathes ; Edward still lives and 
reigns : 
When they are gone, then must I count my gains. 

[Exit. 

SCENE II.— The same. Another Street. 

Enter the corpse of King Henry the Sixth, 
borne in an open coffin, Gentlemen bearing hal- 
berds to guard it ; and Lady Anne as mourner. 

Anne. Set down, set down your honorable load, 
If honor may be shrouded in a hearse, 



sc. il] KINO RICHARD III. 39 

Whilst I awhile obsequiously lament 

The untimely fall of virtuous Lancaster. 

Poor key-cold figure of a holy king ! 5 

Pale ashes of the house of Lancaster ! 

Thou bloodless remnant of that royal blood ! 

Be 't lawful that I invocate thy ghost 

To hear the lamentations of poor Anne, 

Wife to thy Edward, to thy slaughter' d son, 10 

Stabb'd by the self-same hand that made these 

wounds ! 
Lo, in these windows that let forth thy life 
I pour the helpless bairn of my poor eyes : 
Curs' d be the hand that made these fatal holes ! 
Cursed the heart that had the heart to do it ! 15 

Cursed the blood that let this blood from hence ! 
More direful hap betide that hated wretch 
That makes us wretched by the death of thee 
Than I can wish to adders, spiders, toads, 
Or any creeping venom 'd thing that lives ! 20 

If ever he have child, abortive be it, 
Prodigious, and untimely brought to light, 
Whose ugly and unnatural aspect 
May fright the hopeful mother at the view ; 
And that be heir to his un happiness ! 25 

If ever he have wife, let her be made 
More miserable by the death of him 
Than I am made by my young lord and thee ! 
Come, now toward Chertsey with your holy load, 
Taken from Paul's to be interred there ; 30 

And still, as you are weary of the weight, 
Rest you, whiles I lament King Henry's corse. 

[The bearers take up the corpse and advance. 

Enter Gloster. 

Gloster. Stay, you that bear the corse, and set it 
down. 



40 KING RICHARD III. [act i. 

Anne. What black magician conjures up this 
fiend, 
35 To stop devoted charitable deeds? 

Gloster. Villains, set down the corse ; or, by 
Saint Paul, 
I '11 make a corse of him that disobeys ! 
First Gentleman. My lord, stand back, and let 

the coffin pass. 
Gloster. Unnianner'd dog ! stand thou, when I 
command : 
4° Advance thy halberd higher than my breast, 
Or, by Saint Paul, I '11 strike thee to my foot, 
And spurn upon thee, beggar, for thy boldness. 

[ The bearers set down the coffin. 
Anne. What, do you tremble ? are you all afraid ? 
Alas, I blame you not, for you are mortal, 
45 And mortal eyes cannot endure the devil. 
A vaunt, thou dreadful minister of hell ! 
Thou hadst but power over his mortal body, 
His soul thou canst not have ; therefore, be gone. 
Gloster. Sweet saint, for charity, be not so curst. 
5° Anne. Foul devil, for God's sake, hence, and 
trouble us not ; 
For thou hast made the happy earth thy hell, 
Fill'd it with cursing cries and deep exclaims. 
If thou delight to view thy heinous deeds, 
Behold this pattern of thy butcheries. 
55 O, gentlemen, see, see ! dead Henry's wounds 
Open their congeal' d mouths and bleed afresh ! 
Blush, blush, thou lump of foul deformity ; 
For 'tis thy presence that exhales this blood 
From cold and empty veins, where no blood dwells; 
6o Thy deed, inhuman and unnatural, 
Provokes this deluge most unnatural. 
O God, which this blood mad'st, revenge his death ! 
O earth, which this blood drink'st, revenge his 
death ! 



sc. ii.] KING RICHARD III 41 

Either heaven with lightning strike the murderer 

dead, 
Or earth gape open wide and eat him quick, 65 

As thou dost swallow up this good king's blood, 
Which his hell-govern 'd arm hath butchered ! 

Gloster. Lady, you know no rules of charity, 
Which renders good for bad, blessings for curses. 

Anne. Villain, thou know'st no law of God nor 

man : 70 

No beast so fierce but knows some touch of pity. 

Gloster. But I know none, and therefore am no 
beast. 

Anne. O wonderful when devils tell the truth ! 

Gloster. More wonderful when angels are so 
angry. 
Vouchsafe, divine perfection of a woman, 75 

Of these supposed evils, to give me leave, 
By circumstance, but to acquit myself. 

Anne. Vouchsafe, defus'd infection of a man, 
For these known evils, but to give me leave, 
By circumstance, to curse thy cursed self. 80 

Gloster. Fairer than tongue can name thee, let 
me have 
Some patient leisure to excuse myself. 

Anne. Fouler than heart can think thee, thou 
canst make 
No excuse current, but to hang thyself. 

Gloster. By such despair I should accuse myself. 85 

Anne. And by despairing shalt thou stand ex- 
cus'd, 
For doing worthy vengeance on thyself, 
That didst unworthy slaughter upon others. ■ 

Gloster. Say that I slew them not. 

Anne. Why then they are not dead : 90 

But dead they are, and, devilish slave, by thee. 

Gloster. I did not kill your husband. 



42 KING RICHARD III. [act i. 

Anne. Why, then he is alive. 

Gloster. Nay, he is dead ; and slain by Edward's 

hand. 
Anne. In thy foul throat thou liest : Queen Mar- 
garet saw 
95 Thy murderous falchion smoking in his blood : 
The which thou once didst bend against her breast, 
But that thy brothers beat aside the point. 

Gloster. I was provoked by her slanderous tongue, 
That laid their guilt upon my guiltless shoulders, 
ioo Anne. Thou wast provoked by thy bloody mind, 
That never dreamt on aught but butcheries : 
Didst thou not kill this king? 

Gloster. I grant ye. 

Anne. Dost grant me, hedgehog ? then, God grant 
me too 
Thou mayst be damned for that wicked deed ! 
105 O, he was gentle, mild, and virtuous ! 

Gloster. The fitter for the King of heaven, that 

hath him. 
Anne. He is in heaven, where thou shalt never 

come. 
Gloster. Let him thank me that holp to send 
him thither ; 
For he was fitter for that place than earth. 
1 10 Anne. And thou unfit for any place but hell. 
Gloster. But, gentle Lady Anne, 
To leave this keen encounter of our wits, 
And fall somewhat into a slower method, 
Is not the causer of the timeless deaths 
1 1 5 Of these Plantagenets, Henry and Edward, 
As blameful as the executioner ? 
Anne. Thou wast the cause, and most acorns' d 

effect. 
Gloster. Your beauty was the cause of that effect. 
Anne. If I thought that, I tell thee, homicide, 



sc. el] KING RICHARD III. 43 

These nails should rend that beauty from my 

cheeks. 1 20 

Gloster. These eyes could not endure that beauty's 
wreck ; 
You should not blemish it, if I stood by : 
As all the world is cheered by the sun, 
So I by that ; it is my day, my life. 
Anne. Black night o'ershade thy day, and death 

thy life ! 125 

Gloster. Curse not thyself, fair creature ; thou 

art both. 
Anne. I would I were, to be reveng'd on thee. 
Gloster. It is a quarrel most unnatural, 
To be reveng'd on him that loveth thee. 

Anne. It is a quarrel just and reasonable, 130 

To be reveng'd on him that kill'd my husband. 
Gloster. He that bereft thee, lady, of thy hus- 
band, 
Did it to help thee to a better husband. 
Anne. His better doth not breathe upon the earth. 
Gloster. He lives that loves thee better than he 

could. 1 3 5 

Anne. Name him. 
Gloster. Plantagenet. 

Anne. Why, that was he. 

Gloster. The self-same name, but one of better 

nature. 
Anne. Where is he ? 
Gloster. Here. [She spits at him.'] Why dost thou 

spit at me ? 
Anne. Would it were mortal poison, for thy sake! 140 
Gloster. Never came poison from so sweet a place. 
Anne. Never hung poison on a fouler toad. 
Out of my sight ! thou dost infect mine eyes. 
Gloster. Thine eyes, sweet lady, have infected 
mine. 



44 KING RICHARD III. [act i. 

145 Anne. Would they were basilisk's to strike thee 
dead ! 
Oloster. I would they were that I might die at 
once ; 
For now they kill me with a living death. 
Those eyes of thine from mine have drawn salt 

tears, 
Sham'd their aspect with store of childish drops : 
1 50 These eyes, which never shed remorseful tear, 
No, when my father York and Edward wept 
To hear the piteous moan that Rutland made, 
When black-faced Clifford shook his sword at him; 
Nor when thy warlike father, like a child, 
155 Told the sad story of my father's death, 

And twenty times made pause to sob and weep, 
That all the standers-by had wet their cheeks, 
Like trees bedash 'd with rain : — in that sad time 
My manly eyes did scorn an humble tear ; 
160 And what these sorrows could not thence exhale, 
Thy beauty hath, and made them blind with 

weeping. 
I never sued to friend nor enemy ; 
My tongue could never learn sweet smoothing 

words ; 
But, now thy beauty is propos'd my fee, 
165 My proud heart sues and prompts my tongue to 
speak. [She looks scornfully at him. 

Teach not thy lips such scorn ; for they were made 
For kissing, lady, not for such contempt. 
If thy revengeful heart cannot forgive, 
Lo, here I lend thee this sharp-pointed sword ; 
17° Which if thou please to hide in this true breast, 
And let the soul forth that adoreth thee, 
I lay it naked to the deadly stroke, 
And humbly beg the death upon my knee. 
[He lays his breast open; she offers at it with his 
sword. 



sc. ii.] KING RICHARD III. 45 

Nay, do not pause ; for I did kill King Henry, 
But 'twas thy beauty that provoked me. I7 c 

Nay, now dispatch ; 'twas I that stabb'd young 
Edward, [She again offers at his breast. 
But 'twas thy heavenly face that set me on. 

[She lets fall the sword. 
Take up the sword again, or take up me. 

Anne. Arise, dissembler : though I wish thy 
death, 
I will not be the executioner. 180 

Gloster. Then bid me kill myself, and I will do it. 

Anne. I have already. 

Gloster. That was in thy rage : 

Speak it again, and even with the word, 
This hand, which for thy love did kill thy love, 
Shall for thy love kill a far truer love ; 185 

To both their deaths shalt thou be accessary. 

Anne. I would I knew thy heart. 

Gloster. 'Tis figur'd in my tongue. 

Anne. I fear me both are false. 

Gloster. Then never man was true. 190 

Anne. Well, well, put up your sword. 

Gloster. Say, then, my peace is made. 

Anne. That shall you know hereafter. 

Gloster. But shall I live in hope ? 

Anne. All men, I hope, live so. 195 

Gloster. Vouchsafe to wear this ring. 

Anne. To take is not to give. 

[She puts on the ring. 

Gloster. Look, how this ring encompasseth thy 
finger, 
Even so thy breast encloseth my poor heart ; 
Wear both of them, for both of them are thine. 200 
And if thy poor, devoted servant may 
But beg one favor at thy gracious hand, 
Thou dost confirm his happiness for ever. 



46 KING RICHARD III. [act i. 

Anne. What is it ? 
205 Gloster. That it may please you to leave these 
sad designs 
To him that hath most cause to be a mourner, 
And presently repair to Crosby Place ; 
Where, after I have solemnly interr'd, 
At Chertsey monastery, this noble king, 
210 And wet his grave with my repentant tears, 
I will with all expedient duty see you : 
For divers unknown reasons, I beseech you 
Grant me this boon. 
Anne. With all my heart ; and much it joys me 
too 
215 To see you are become so penitent. 

Tressel and Berkley, go along with me. 
Gloster. Bid me farewell. 

Anne. 'Tis more than you deserve ; 

But, since you teach me how to natter you, 
Imagine I have said farewell already. 

{Exeunt Lady Anne, Tressel, and Berkley. 
220 Gloster. Sirs, take up the corse. 

Gentlemen. Towards Chertsey, noble lord ? 

Gloster. No, to White-Friars ; there attend my 
coming. [Exeunt the rest with the corpse. 
Was ever woman in this humor woo'd ? 
Was ever woman in this humor won ? 
I '11 have her ; but I will not keep her long. 
225 What ! I, that kill'd her husband and his father, 
To take her in her heart's extremest hate, 
With curses in her mouth, tears in her eyes, 
The bleeding witness of her hatred by ; 
Having God, her conscience, and these bars against 
me, 
2 3° And I no friends to back my suit withal, 
But the plain devil and dissembling looks, 
And yet to win her, all the world to nothing ! 



sc. hi.] KING RICHARD III. 47 

Ha! 

Hath she forgot already that brave prince, 
Edward, her lord, whom I, some three months 

since, 235 

Stabb'd in my angry mood at Tewksbury? 
A sweeter and a lovelier gentleman, 
Fram'd in the prodigality of nature, 
Young, valiant, wise, and, no doubt, right royal, 
The spacious world cannot again afford : 2 ±o 

And will she yet abase her eyes on me, 
That cropp'd the golden prime of this sweet prince, 
And made her widow to a woeful bed ? 
On me, whose all not equals Edward's moiety ? 
On me, that halt and am misshapen thus? 245 

My dukedom to a beggarly denier, 
I do mistake my person all this while : 
Upon my life, she finds, although I cannot, 
Myself to be a marvelous proper man. 
I '11 be at charges for a looking-glass, 250 

And entertain a score or two of tailors, 
To study fashions to adorn my body : 
Since I am crept in favor with myself, 
I will maintain it with some little cost. 
But, first, I '11 turn yon fellow in his grave ; 255 

And then return lamenting to my love. 
Shine out, fair sun, till I have bought a glass 
That I may see my shadow as I pass. {Exit. 

SCENE III. — The same. A room in the Palace. 

Enter Queen Elizabeth, Rivers, and Grey. 

Rivers. Have patience, madam : there's no doubt 
his majesty 
Will soon recover his accustom'd health. 

Grey. In that you brook it ill, it makes him 
worse : 



48 KING RICHARD III. [act i. 

Therefore, for God's sake, entertain good comfort, 

5 And cheer his grace with quick and merry words. 

Queen Elizabeth. If he were dead, what would 

betide of me ? 
Grey. No other harm but loss of such a lord. 
Queen Elizabeth. The loss of such a lord includes 

all harm. 
Grey. The heavens have bless' d you with a goodly 
son, 
i o To be your comforter when he is gone. 

Queen Elizabeth. Ah, he is young ; and his mi- 
nority 
Is put unto the trust of Richard Gloster, 
A man that loves not me, nor none of you. 
Rivers. Is it concluded he shall be protector ? 
15 Queen Elizabeth. It is determin'd, not concluded 
yet: 
But so it must be if the king miscarry. 

Enter Buckingham and Stanley. 

Grey. Here come the Lords of Buckingham and 

Stanley. 
Buckingham. Good time of day unto your royal 

grace ! 
Stanley. God make your majesty joyful as you 
have been ! 
20 Queen Elizabeth. The Countess Richmond, good 
my Lord of Stanley, 
To your good prayers will scarcely say amen. 
Yet, Stanley, notwithstanding she's your wife, 
And loves not me, be you, good lord, assur'd 
I hate not you for her proud arrogance. 
25 Stanley. I do beseech you, either not believe 
The envious slanders of her false accusers ; 
Or, if she be accus'd on true report, 
Bear with her weakness, which, I think, proceeds 



sc. in.] KING RICHARD III. 49 

From wayward sickness, and no grounded malice. 
Queen Elizabeth. Saw you the king to-day, my 

Lord of Stanley ? 30 

Stanley. But now the Duke of Buckingham and I 
Are come from visiting his majesty. 

Queen Elizabeth. What likelihood of his amend- 
ment, lords? 
Buckingham. Madam, good hope ; his grace 

speaks cheerfully. 
Queen Elizabeth. God grant him health ! did you 

confer with him ? 35 

Buckingham. Ay, madam : he desires to make 
atonement 
Between the Duke of Gloster and your brothers, 
And between them and my lord chamberlain ; 
And sent to warn them to his royal presence. 
Queen Elizabeth. Would all were well ! but that 

will never be : 40 

I fear our happiness is at the height. 

Enter Gloster, Hastings, and Dorset. 

Gloster. They do me wrong, and I will not en- 
dure it : 
Who are they that complain unto the king 
That I, forsooth, am stern and love them not? 
By holy Paul, they love his grace but lightly 45 

That fill his ears with such dissentious rumors. 
Because I cannot flatter, and speak fair, 
Smile in men's faces, smooth, deceive, and cog, 
Duck with French nods and apish courtesy, 
I must be held a rancorous enemy. 50 

Cannot a plain man live and think no harm, 
But thus his simple truth must be abus'd 
By silken, sly, insinuating Jacks? 

Greg. To whom in all this presence speaks your 
grace ? 



50 KING RICHARD IIL [act i. 

55 Gloster. To thee, that hast nor honesty nor grace. 
When have I injur' d thee ? when done thee wrong? 
Or thee ? or thee ? or any of your faction ? 
A plague upon you all ! His royal person— 
Whom God preserve better than you would wish — 
60 Cannot be quiet scarce a breathing-while, 

But you must trouble him with lewd complaints. 
Queen Elizabeth. Brother of Gloster, you mis- 
take the matter : 
The king, of his own royal disposition, 
And not provok'd by any suitor else, 
65 Aiming, belike, at your interior hatred, 
That in your outward action shows itself 
Against my children, brothers, and myself, 
Makes him to send ; that thereby he may gather 
The ground of your ill-will, and so remove it. 
7° Gloster. I cannot tell : the world is grown so bad 
That wrens make prey where eagles dare not perch: 
Since every Jack became a gentleman, 
There 's many a gentle person made a Jack. 

Queen Elizabeth. Come, come, we know your 
meaning, brother Gloster ; 
75 You envy my advancement and my friends': 
God grant we never may have need of you ! 

Gloster. Meantime, God grants that we have 
need of you : 
Our brother is imprison' d by your means, 
Myself disgrac'd, and the nobility 
80 Held in contempt ; while great promotions 
Are daily given to ennoble those 
That scarce, some two days since, were worth a 
noble. 
Queen Elizabeth. By Him thatrais'd me to this 
careful height 
From that contented hap which I enjoy'd, 
85 I never did incense his majesty 



sc. in.] KING RICHARD III. 51 

Against the Duke of Clarence, but have been 
An earnest advocate to plead for him. 
My lord, you do me shameful injury 
Falsely to draw rne in these vile suspects. 

Gloster. You may deny that you were not the 

cause go 

Of my Lord Hastings' late imprisonment. 

Rivers. She may, my lord ; for 

Gloster. She may, Lord Rivers ! why, who 
knows not so ? 
She may do more, sir, than denying that : 
She may help you to many fair preferments, 95 

And then deny her aiding hand therein, 
And lay those honors on your high deserts. 
What may she not? She may,— ay, marry, may 
she 

Rivers. What, marry, may she ? 

Gloster. What, marry, may she ! marry with a 

king, 100 

A bachelor, a handsome stripling too : 
I wis your grandam had a worser match. 

Queen Elizabeth. My Lord of Gloster, I have too 
long borne 
Your blunt upbraidings and your bitter scoffs : 
By heaven, I will acquaint his majesty 105 

Of those gross taunts that oft I have endur'd. 
I'd rather be a country servant-maid 
Than a great queen, with this condition, 
To be so baited, scorn' d, and stormed at : 

Enter Queen Margaret, behind. 

Small joy have I in being England's queen. 1 10 

Queen Margaret. And lessen' d be that small, 
God, I beseech thee ! 
Thy honor, state, and seat is due to me. 

Gloster. What ! threat you me with telling of the 
king? 



52 KING RICHARD III [act i. 

Tell him, and spare not : look, what I have said 
1 1 5 I will avouch in presence of the king : 
I dare adventure to be sent to the Tower. 
'Tis time to speak, my pains are quite forgot. 
Queen Margaret. Out, devil ! I remember them 
too well : 
Thou kill'dst my husband Henry in the Tower, 
1 20 And Edward, my poor son, at Tewksbury. 

Gloster. Ere you were queen, ay, or your hus- 
band king, 
I was a packhorse in his great affairs ; 
A weeder-out of his proud adversaries, 
A liberal rewarder of his friends ; 
125 To royalize his blood I spilt mine own. 

Queen Margaret. Ay, and much better blood 

than his or thine. 
Gloster. In all which time, you and your hus- 
band Grey 
Were factious for the house of Lancaster ; 
And, Rivers, so were you. Was not your husband 
130 In Margaret's battle at St. Albans slain ? 
Let me put in your minds, if you forget, 
What you have been, ere this, and what you are ; 
Withal, what I have been, and what I am. 

Queen Margaret. A murderous villain, and so 
still thou art. 
135 Gloster. Poor Clarence did forsake his father 
Warwick, 
Ay, and forswore himself,— which Jesu pardon ! — 
Queen Margaret. Which God revenge ! 
Gloster. To fight on Edward's party for the 
crown ; 
And, for his meed, poor lord, he is mew'd up : 
140 I would to God my heart were flint like Edward's, 
Or Edward's soft and pitiful like mine ; 
I am too childish-foolish for this world. 



sc. in.] KING RICHARD III. 53 

Queen Margaret. Hie thee to hell for shame, and 
leave this world, 
Thou cacodemon ! there thy kingdom is. 

Rivers. My Lord of Gloster, in those busy days 145 
Which here you urge to prove us enemies, 
We follow 'd then our lord, our lawful king ; 
So should we you if you should be our king. 

Gloster. If I should be ! — I'd rather be a pedlar; 
Far be it from my heart, the thought of it ! 150 

Queen Elizabeth. As little joy, my lord, as you 
suppose 
You should enjoy were you this country's king, — 
As little joy you may suppose in me 
That I enjoy, being the queen thereof. 

Queen Margaret. A little joy enjoys the queen 

thereof; 155 

For I am she, and altogether joyless. 
I can no longer hold rne patient. — [Advancing. 
Hear me, you wrangling pirates, that fall out 
In sharing that which you have pill'd from me : 
Which of you trembles not that looks on me ? 160 

If not, that, I being queen, you bow like subjects, 
Yet that, by you depos'd, you quake like rebels? 
O gentle villain, do not turn away ! 

Gloster. Foul, wrinkled witch, what mak'st 
thou in my sight ? 

Queen Margaret. But repetition of what thou 

hast marr'd ; ^5 

That will I make before I let thee go. 

Glost&r. Wert thou not banished on pain of death? 

Queen Margaret. I was ; but I do find more pain 
in banishment 
Than death can yield me here by my abode. 
A husband and a son thou ow'st to me ; iy Q 

And thou a kingdom ; all of you allegiance : 
This sorrow that I have by right is yours, 



54 KING RICHARD III. [act i. 

And all the pleasures you usurp are mine. 

Oloster. The curse my noble father laid on thee, 
175 When thou didst crown his warlike brows with 
paper, 
And with thy scorns drew'st rivers from his eyes, 
And then, to dry them, gav'st the duke a clout 
Steep 'd in the faultless blood of pretty Rutland, — 
His curses, then from bitterness of soul 
180 Denounc'd against thee, are all fall'11 upon thee ; 
And God, not we, hath plagu'd thy bloody deed. 
Queen Elizabeth. So just is God* to right the in- 
nocent. 
Hastings. O, 'twas the foulest deed to slay that 
babe, 
And the most merciless that e'er was heard of ! 
185 Rivers. Tyrants themselves wept when it was 
reported. 
Dorset. No man but prophesied revenge for it. 
Buckingham. Northumberland, then present, 

wept to see it. 
Queen Margaret. What ! were you snarling all 
before I came, 
Ready to catch each other by the throat, 
190 And turn you all your hatred now on me? 

Did York's dread curse prevail so much with 

heaven 
That Henry's death, my lovely Edward's death, 
Their kingdom's loss, my woeful banishment 
Could all but answer for that peevish brat ? 
195 Can curses pierce the clouds and enter heaven? 
Why, then, give way, dull clouds, to my quick 

curses ! 
If not by war, by surfeit die your king, 
As ours by murder to make him a king ! 
Edward, thy son, that now is Prince of Wales, 
200 For Edward, my son, that was Prince of Wales, 



sc. in.] KING RICHARD III. 55 

Die in his youth, by like untimely violence ! 
Thyself a queen, for me that was a queen, 
Outlive thy glory, like my wretched self ! 
Long mayst thou live to wail thy children's loss ; 
And see another, as I see thee now, 205 

Deck'd in thy rights, as thou art stall' d in mine ! 
Long die thy happy days before thy death ; 
And, after many lengthen 'd hours of grief, 
Die neither mother, wife, nor England's queen ! 
Rivers and Dorset, you were standers by, 210 

And so wast thou, Lord Hastings, when my son 
Was stabb'd with bloody daggers : God, I pray 

him 
That none of you may live your natural age, 
But by some unlook'd accident cut off! 

Oloster. Have done thy charm, thou hateful, 

wither' d hag. 215 

Queen Margaret. And leave out thee ! stay, dog, 
for thou shalt hear me. 
If heaven have any grievous plague in store 
Exceeding those that I can wish upon thee, 
O, let them keep it till thy sins be ripe, 
And then hurl down their indignation 220 

On thee, the troubler of the poor world's peace ! 
The worm of conscience shall begnaw thy soul ! 
Thy friends suspect for traitors while thou liv'st, 
And take deep traitors for thy dearest friends ! 
No sleep close up that deadly eye of thine 225 

Unless it be while some tormenting dream 
Affrights thee with a hell of ugly devils ! 
Thou elvish-mark' d, abortive, rooting hog ! 
Thou that wast seal'd in thy nativity 
The slave of nature and the son of hell ! 230 

Thou rag of honor ! thou detested— 

Oloster. Margaret. 

Queen Margaret. Richard ! 



56 KING RICHARD III. [act i. 

Oloster. Ha ! 

Queen Margaret. I call thee not. 

Oloster. I cry thee mercy then, for I did think 
That thou hadst call'd me all these bitter names. 
2 35 Queen Margaret. Why, so I did ; but look' d for no 
reply. 
O, let me make the period to my curse ! 
Oloster. 'Tis done by me ; and ends in — Margaret. 
Queen Elizabeth. Thus have you breath'd your 

curse against yourself. 
Queen Margaret. Poor, painted queen, vain flour- 
ish of my fortune ! 
240 Why strew'st thou sugar on that bottled spider, 
Whose deadly web ensnareth thee about ? 
Fool, fool ! thou whett'st a knife to kill thyself. 
The day will come that thou shalt wish for me 
To help thee curse this pois'nous bunch-back'd 
toad. 
245 Hastings. False-boding woman, end thy frantic 
curse, 
Lest to thy harm thou move our patience. 

Queen Margaret. Foul shame upon you ! you 

have all mov'd mine. 
Rivers. Were you well serv'd, you would be 

taught your duty. 
Queen Margaret. To serve me well, you all 
should do me duty, 
250 Teach me to be your queen, and you my subjects ; 
O, serve me well, and teach yourselves that duty ! 
Dorset. Dispute not with her, she is lunatic. 
Queen Margaret. Peace, master marquis, you are 
malapert : 
Your fire-new stamp of honor is scarce current. 
2 55 O, that your young nobility could judge 
What 'twere to lose it and be miserable ! 
They that stand high have many blasts to shake 
them ; 



sc. in.] KING RICHARD III. 57 

And, if they fall, they dash themselves to pieces. 
Oloster. Good counsel, marry ; learn it, learn it, 

marquis. 
Dorset. It touches you, my lord, as much as me. 260 
Oloster. Ay, and much more : but I was born so 
high, 
Our aery buildeth in the cedar's top, 
And dallies with the wind and scorns the sun. 
Queen Margaret. And turns the sun to shade ; 
alas ! alas ! 
Witness my son, now in the shade of death, 2 ^5 

Whose bright outshining beams thy cloudy wrath 
Hath in eternal darkness folded up. 
Your aery buildeth in our aery's nest. 
O God, that seest it, do not suffer it ; 
As it was won with blood, lost be it so ! 
Buckingham. Peace, peace, for shame, if not for 

charity. 
Queen Margaret. Urge neither charity nor shame 
to me ; 
Uncharitably with me have you dealt, 
And shamefully my hopes by you are butcher' d. 
My charity is outrage, life my shame ; 275 

And in that shame still live my sorrow's rage ! 
Buckingham. Have done, have done. 
Queen Margaret. O princely Buckingham, I '11 
kiss thy hand, 
In sign of league and amity with thee : 
Now fair befall thee and thy noble house ! 280 

Thy garments are not spotted with our blood, 
Nor thou within the compass of my curse. 
Buckingham. Nor no one here ; for curses never 
pass 
The lips of those that breathe them in the air. 
Queen Margaret. I will not think but they 

ascend the sky, 285 



58 KING RICHARD III [act i. 

And there awake God's gentle-sleeping peace. 

Buckingham, take heed of yonder dog ! 

Look, when he fawns, he bites ; and, when he 

bites, 
His venom tooth will rankle to the death ; 
290 Have not to do with him, beware of him ; 

Sin, death, and hell have set their marks on him ; 
And all their ministers attend on him. 

Oloster. What doth she say, my Lord of Buck- 
ingham ? 
Buckingham. Nothing that I respect, my gra- 
cious lord. 
295 Queen Margaret. What, dost thou scorn me for 
my gentle counsel ? 
And soothe the devil that I warn thee from ? 
O, but remember this another day, 
When he shall split thy very heart with sorrow : 
And say poor Margaret was a prophetess. 
300 Live each of you the subjects to his hate, 

And he to yours, and all of you to God's ! {Exit. 
Hastings. My hair doth stand on end to hear her 

curses. 
Rivers. And so doth mine ; I muse why she 's at 

liberty. 
Oloster. I cannot blame her : 
305 She hath had too much wrong ; and I repent 
My part thereof that I have done to her. 

Queen Elizabeth. I never did her any, to my 

knowledge. 
Oloster. Yet you have all the vantage of her 
wrong. 

1 was too hot to do somebody good 
310 That is too cold in thinking of it now. 

Marry, as for Clarence, he is well repaid ; 
He is frank' d up to fatting for his pains ; 
God pardon them that are the cause thereof ! 



sc. in.] KING RICHARD III. 59 

Rivers. A virtuous and a Christianlike conclu- 
sion, 
To pray for them that have done scathe to us. 3 1 5 

Gloster. So do lever, [Aside.] being well advis'd ; 
For, had I curs' d now, I had curs' d myself. 

Enter Catesby. 

Catesby. Madam, his majesty doth call for you ; 
And for your grace ; and you, my noble lords. 

Queen Elizabeth. Catesby, I come. Lords, will 

you go with me ? 3 2 ° 

Rivers. We wait upon your grace. 

[Exeunt all but Gloster. 

Gloster. I do the wrong, and first begin to brawl. 
The secret mischiefs that I set abroach 
I lay unto the grievous charge of others. 
Clarence, whom I, indeed, have laid in darkness, 325 
I do beweep to many simple gulls ; 
Namely, to Stanley, Hastings, Buckingham ; 
And tell them 'tis the queen and her allies 
That stir the king against the duke my brother. 
Now they believe it ; and withal whet me 330 

To be reveng'd on Rivers, Vaughan, Grey : 
But then I sigh, and, with a piece of Scripture, 
Tell them that God bids us do good for evil : 
And thus I clothe my naked villainy 
With odd old ends, stolen out of holy writ ; 335 

And seem a saint when most I play the devil. 

Enter two Murderers. 

But soft, here come my executioners. 
How now, my hardy, stout, resolved mates ! 
Are you now going to dispatch this deed ? 
First Murderer. We are, my lord ; and come to 

have the warrant, * 340 

That we may be admitted where he is. 



60 KING RICHARD III. [act i. 

Gloster. Well thought upon ; I have it here about 
rue : [Gives the warrant. 

When you have done, repair to Crosby Place. 
But, sirs, be sudden in the execution, 
345 Withal obdurate, do not hear him plead ; 
For Clarence is well-spoken, and perhaps 
May move your hearts to pity if you mark him. 
First Murderer. Tut, tut ! my lord, we will not 
stand to prate ; 
Talkers are no good doers ; be assur'd 
3^o We go to use our hands and not our tongues. 

Gloster. Your eyes drop millstones when fools' 
eyes fall tears : 
I like you, lads ; — about your business straight ; 
Go, go, dispatch. 
First Murderer. We will, my noble lord. 

[Exeunt. 

SCENE IV.— A Room in the Tower. 

Enter Clarence and Brakenbury. 

Brakenbury. Why looks your grace so heavily 

to-day ? 
Clarence. O, I have pass'd a miserable night, 
So full of ugly sights, of ghastly dreams 
That, as I am a Christian faithful man, 
5 I would not spend another such a night, 
Though 'twere to buy a world of happy days— 
So full of dismal terror was the time ! 

Brakenbury. What was your dream, my lord? I 

pray you, tell me. 
Clarence. Methought that I had broken from 
the Tower, 
io And was embark' d to cross to Burgundy ; 
And, in my company, my brother Gloster ; 
Who from my cabin tempted me to walk ' 



sc. iv.] KING RICHARD III. 61 

Upon the hatches : thence we look'd toward Eng- 
land, 
And cited up a thousand fearful times, 
During the wars of York and Lancaster 1 5 

That had befall' n us. As we pac'd along 
Upon the giddy footing of the hatches, 
Methought that Gloster stumbled ; and, in falling, 
Struck me, that thought to stay him, overboard, 
Into the tumbling billows of the main. 20 

O Lord ! methought what pain it was to drown ! 
What dreadful noise of water in mine ears I 
What ugly sights of death within mine eyes ! 
Methought I saw a thousand fearful wrecks ; 
A thousand men that fishes gnaw'd upon ; -$ 

Wedges of gold, great anchors, heaps of pearl, 
Inestimable stones, unvalued jewels, 
All scatter' d in the bottom of the sea : 
Some lay in dead men's skulls ; and in those holes 
Where eyes did once inhabit, there were crept, 30 
As 'twere in scorn of eyes, reflecting gems, 
That woo'd the slimy bottom of the deep, 
And mock'd the dead bones that lay scatter' d by. 

Brakenbury. Had you such leisure in the time of 
death 
To gaze upon the secrets of the deep? 35 

Clarence. Methought I had ; and often did I 
strive 
To yield the ghost : but still the envious flood 
Kept in my soul, and would not let it forth 
To find the empty, vast, and wand'ring air ; 
But smother' d it within my panting bulk, 40 

Which almost burst to belch it in the sea. 

Brakenbury. Awak'd you not with this sore 
agony? [life; 

Clarence. No, no, my dream was lengthen 'd after 
O, then began the tempest to my soul ! 



62 KING RICHARD III. [act. i. 

45 I pass'd, methought, the melancholy flood 
"With that grim ferryman which poets write of, 
Unto the kingdom of perpetual night. 
The first that there did greet my stranger soul 
Was my great father-in-law, renowned Warwick ; 

5° Who cried aloud, What scourge for perjury 
Can this dark monarchy afford false Clarence f 
And so he vanished : then came wandering by 
A shadow like an angel, with bright hair 
Dabbled in blood ; and he shriek' d out aloud, 

55 Clarence is come— false, fleeting, perjured Clar- 
ence — 
That stabbhl me in the field by Tewksbury ; 
Seize on him, Furies, take him to your torments ! 
With that, methought, a legion of foul fiends 
Environ 'd me, and howled in mine ears 

oo Such hideous cries that with the very noise 
I, trembling, wak'd, and, for a season after 
Could not believe but that I was in hell, 
Such terrible impression made my dream. 
Brakenbury. No marvel, lord, though it af- 
frighted you ; 

65 I am afraid, methinks, to hear you tell it. 

Clarence. O Brakenbury, I have done those 
things 
That now give evidence against my soul, 
For Edward's sake ; and see how he requites me \ 

God ! if my deep prayers cannot appease thee, 
70 But thou wilt be aveng'd on my misdeeds, 

Yet execute thy wrath in me alone : 

O, spare my guiltless wife and my poor children ! 

1 pray thee, gentle keeper, stay by me ; 
My soul is heavy, and I fain would sleep. 

75 Brakenbury. I will, my lord : God give your 
grace good rest ! [Clarence 

Sorrow breaks seasons and reposing hours, 



sc. iv.] KING RICHARD III. 63 

Makes the night morning, and the noontide night. 

Princes have but their titles for their glories, 

An outward honor of an inward toil ; 

And, for unfelt imaginations, 80 

They often feel a world of restless cares : 

So that, between their titles and low name, 

There 's nothing differs but the outward fame. 

Enter the two Murderers. 

First Murderer. Ho ! who 's here ? 

Brakenbury. What wouldst thou, fellow? and 

how cam'st thou hither? 85 

First Murderer. I would speak with Clarence, 
and I came hither on my legs. 

Brakenbury. What, so brief? 

Second Murderer. 'Tis better, sir, than to be 
tedious. Show him our commission, and talk no 90 
more. 
[A paper is delivered to Brakenbury, who reads it. 

Brakenbury. I am, in this, commanded to de- 
liver 
The noble Duke of Clarence to your hands : — 
I will not reason what is meant hereby, 
Because I will be guiltless of the meaning. 95 

There lies the duke asleep — and there the keys, 
1 '11 to the king ; and signify to him 
That thus I have resign' d to you my charge. 

First Murderer. You may, sir : 'tis a point of 
wisdom : 
Fare you well. [Exit Brakenbury. 100 

Second Murderer. What, shall we stab him as he 
sleeps ? 

First Murderer. No; he'll say 'twas done cow- 
ardly when he wakes. 

Second Murderer. Why, he shall never wako 105 
until the great judgment-day. 



64 KING RICHARD III [act i. 

First Murderer. Why, then he'll say we stabb'd 
hini sleeping. 

Second Murderer. The urging of that word, judg- 
noment, hath bred a kind of remorse in nie. 

First Murderer. What, art thou afraid ? 

Second Murderer. Not to kill him, having a war- 
rant ; but to be damned for killing him, from the 
which no warrant can defend me. 
1 1 5 First Murderer. I thought thou hadst been re- 
solute. 

Second Murderer. So I am to let him live. 

First Murderer. I '11 back to the Duke of Gloster, 
and tell him so. 
120 Second Murderer. Nay, I prithee, stay a little : 
I hope my holy humor will change ; it was wont 
to hold me but while one could tell twenty. 

First Murderer. How dost thou feel thyself now ? 

Second Murderer. Some certain dregs of con- 
125 science are yet within me. 

First Murderer. Remember our reward when the 
deed 's done. 

Second Murderer. Zounds, he dies ; I had forgot 
the reward. 
130 First Murderer. Where 's thy conscience now? 

Second Murderer. In the Duke of Gloster's purse. 

First Murderer. So, when he opens his purse to 
give us our reward, thy conscience flies out. 

Second Murderer. 'Tis no matter ; let it go ; 
135 there's few or none will entertain it. 

First Murderer. What if it come to thee again ? 
> Second Murderer. I '11 not meddle with it, it 
Inakes a man a coward : a man cannot steal but it 
accuse th him ; a man cannot swear but it checks 
14° him ; a man cannot lie but it detects him : 'tis a 
blushing shamefast spirit that mutinies in a man's 
bosom ; it fills one full of obstacles ; it made me 



sc. iv.] KING RICHARD III. u» 7 

once restore a purse of gold that by chance I found ; 
it beggars any man that keeps it ; it is turned out 
of towns and cities for a dangerous thing ; and 145 
every man that means to live well endeavors to 
trust to himself, and live without it. 

First Murderer. Zounds, it is now even at my 
elbow, persuading me not to kill the duke. 

Second Murderer. Take the devil in thy mind, 1 50 
and believe him not : he would insinuate with thee 
but to make thee sigh. 

First Murderer. I am strong-fram'd, he cannot 
prevail with me. 

Second Murderer. Spoke like a tall fellow that 155 
respects his reputation. Come, shall we to this 
gear? 

First Murderer. Take him over the costard with 
the hilts of thy sword, and then throw him into 
the malmsey-butt in the next room. 160 

Second Murderer. O excellent device ! make a 
sop of him. 

fflrst Murderer. Soft ! he wakes. 

Second Murderer. Strike ! 

First Murderer. No, we'll reason with him. 165 

Clarence. Where art thou, keeper? give me a 
cup of wine. 

First Murderer. You shall have wine enough, 
my lord, anon. 

Clarence. In God's name, what art thou? 170 

First Murderer. A man, as you are. 

Clarence. But not, as I am, royal. 

First Murderer. Nor you, as we are, loyal. 

Clarence. Thy voice is thunder, but thy looks 
are humble. 

First Murderer. My voice is now the king's, 1 7 5 
my looks mine own. 

Clarence. How darkly and how deadly dost thou 
speak ! 



66 KING RICHARD III. [act i. 

Your eyes do menace me : why look you pale ? 
Who sent you hither ? Wherefore do you come ? 

1 80 Second Murderer. To, to, to 

Clarence. To murder me ? 
Both Murderers. Ay, ay. 

Clarence. You scarcely have the hearts to tell 
me so, 
And therefore cannot have the hearts to do it. 
185 Wherein, my friends, have I offended you? 

First Murderer. Offended us you have not, bui 
the king. 

Clarence. I shall be reconcil'd to him again. 
Second Murderer. Never, my lord ; therefore pre- 
190 pare to die. 

Clarence. Are you drawn forth from out a world 
of men 
To slay the innocent ? What 's my offense? 
Where is the evidence that doth accuse me ? 
What lawful quest have given their verdict up 
195 Unto the frowning judge? or who pronounc'd 
The bitter sentence of poor Clarence' death? 
Before I be convict by course of law, 
To threaten me with death is most unlawful. 
I charge you, as you hope to have redemption 
200 By Christ's dear blood shed for our grievous sins, 
That you depart, and lay no hands on me : 
The deed you undertake is damnable. 

First Murderer. What we will do we do upon 
command. 
205 Second Murderer. And he that hath commanded 
is the king. 

Clarence. Erroneous vassal ! the great King of 
kings 
Hath in the table of his law commanded 
That thou shalt do no murder : will you then 
210 Spurn at his edict and fulfill a man's? 



sc. iv.] KING RICHARD III. 67 

Take heed ; for he holds vengeance in his hand 
To hurl upon their heads that break his law. 
Second Murderer : And that same vengeance doth 
he hurl on thee 
For false forswearing and for murder too : 215 

Thou didst receive the sacrament to fight 
In quarrel of the house of Lancaster. 
First Murderer. And, like a traitor to the name 
of God, 
Didst break that vow ; and with thy treacherous 

blade 
Unripp'dst the bowels of thy sovereign's son. 220 

Second Murderer. Whom thou wast sworn to 

cherish and defend. 
First Murderer. How canst thou urge God's 
dreadful law to us, 
When thou hast broke it in such dear degree ? 
Clarence. Alas ! for whose sake did I that ill 
deed? 
For Edward, for rny brother, for his sake : 225 

He sends you not to murder me for this ; 
For in that sin he is as deep as I. 
If God will be avenged for the deed, 
O, know you yet, he doth it publicly : 
Take not the quarrel from his powerful arm ; 230 

He needs no indirect nor lawless course 
To cut off those that have offended him. 
First Murderer. Who made thee, then, a bloody 
minister, 
When gallant-springing, brave Plantagenet, 
That princely novice, was struck dead by thee? 235 
Clarence. My brother's love, the devil, and my 

rage. 
First Murderer. Thy brother's love, our duty, 
and thy faults 
Provoke us hither now to slaughter thee. 



68 KING RICHARD III [act i. 

Clarence. If you do love my brother, hate not 
me ; 
240 1 am his brother, and I love him well. 
If you are hir'd for meed, go back again, 
And I will send you to my brother Gloster, 
Who shall reward you better for my life 
Than Edward will for tidings of my death. 
245 Second Murderer. You are deceiv'd, your brother 
Gloster hates you. 
Clarence. O, no ; he loves me, and he holds me 
dear ; 
Go you to him from me. 
Both Murderers. Ay, so we will. 

Clarence. Tell him, when that our princely father 
York 
Bless' d his three sons with his victorious arm, 
250 And charg'd us from his soul to love each other, 
He little thought of this divided friendship : 
Bid Gloster think of this, and he will weep. 
First Murderer. Ay, millstones ; as he lesson' d 

us to weep. 
Clarence. O, do not slander him, for he is kind. 
255 First Murderer. Right, as snow in harvest. — 
Come, you deceive yourself : 
'Tis he that sends us to destroy you here. 

Clarence. It cannot be, for he bewept my fortune, 
And hugg'd me in his arms, and swore, with sobs, 
That he would labor my delivery. 
260 First Murderer. Why, so he doth, when he de- 
livers you 
From this earth's thraldom to the joys of heaven. 
Second Murderer. Make peace with God, for you 

must die, my lord. 
Clarence. Have you that holy feeling in your 
souls 
To counsel me to make my peace with God, 



sc. iv.] KING RICHARD III. 69 

And are you yet to your own souls so blind 265 

That you will war with God by murdering me ? 
Oh, sirs, consider, they that set you on 
To do this deed will hate you for the deed. 

Second Murderer. What shall we do ? 

Clarence. Relent, and save your souls. 

First Murderer. Relent ! 'tis cowardly and wo- 
manish. 270 

Clarence. Not to relent is beastly, savage, devil- 
ish. 
Which of you, if you were a prince's son, 
Being pent from liberty as I am now, 
If two such murderers as yourselves came to you, 
Would not entreat for life ? — 



My friend, I spy some pity in thy looks ; 



275 



O, if thine eye be not a flatterer, 
Come thou on my side, and entreat for me, 
As you would beg were you in my distress : 
A begging prince what beggar pities not? 280 

Second Murderer. Look behind you, my lord. 
First Murderer. Take that, and that ; if all this 
will not do, [Stabs him. 

I '11 drown you in the malmsey-butt within 

[.Exit, ivith the body. 
Second Murderer. A bloody deed, and desperately 
dispatch 'd ! 
How fain, like Pilate, would I wash my hands 285 
Of this most grievous-guilty murder done ! 

Re-enter first Murderer. 

First Murderer. How now ? what mean'st thou, 

that thou help'st me not? 
By heaven, the duke shall know how slack thou 

art. 
Second Murderer. I would he knew that I had 

sav'd his brother ! 



70 KING RICHARD III. [act ii. 

290 Take thou the fee, and tell him what I say ; 

For I repent rne that the duke is slain. [Exit. 

First Murderer. So do not I ; go, coward as thou 
art. 
Well, I '11 go hide the body in some hole, 
Till that the duke give order for his burial : 
295 And, when I have my meed, I will away ; 

For this will out, and here I must not stay. [Exit. 



ACT II. 

SCENE I. — London. A Room in the Palace. 

Enter King Edward {led in sick), Queen Eliza- 
beth, Dorset, Rivers, Hastings, Bucking- 
ham, Grey, and others. 

King Edward. Why, so ; now have I done a good 
day's work : 
You peers, continue this united league : 
I every day expect an embassage 
From my Redeemer to redeem me hence ; 
5 And now in peace my soul shall part to heaven, 
Since I have set my friends at peace on earth. 
Rivers and Hastings, take each other's hand ; 
Dissemble not your hatred, swear your love. 

Rivers. By heaven, my soul is purg'd from grudg- 
ing hate ; 
10 And with my hand I seal my true heart's love. 
Hastings. So thrive I as I truly swear the like ! 
King Edward. Take heed you dally not before 
your king ; 
Lest he that is the supreme King of kings 
Confound your hidden falsehood, and award 
1 5 Either of you to be the other's end. 



sc. i.] KING RICHARD III. 71 

Hastings. So prosper I as I swear perfect love ! 
Rivers. And I as I love Hastings with my heart! 
King Edward. Madam, yourself are not exempt 
in this, 
Nor your son Dorset, — Buckingham, nor you ; 
You have been factious one against the other. 20 

Wife, love Lord Hastings, let him kiss your hand ; 
And what you do, do it unfeignedly. 

Queen Elizabeth. Here, Hastings ; I will never 
more remember 
Our former hatred, so thrive I and mine ! 
King Edward. Dorset, embrace him ; Hastings, 

love lord marquis. 25 

Dorset. This interchange of love, I here protest, 
Upon my part shall be unviolable. 
Hastings. And so swear I, my lord. 

[Embraces Dorset. 
King Edward. Now, princely Buckingham, seal 
thou this league 
With thy embracements to my wife's allies, 30 

And make me happy in your unity. 
Buckingham. Whenever Buckingham doth turn 
his hate 
Upon your grace [To the Queen], but with all 

duteous love 
Doth cherish you and yours, God punish me 
With hate in those where I expect most love ! 35 

When I have most need to employ a friend, 
And most assured that he is a friend, 
Deep, hollow, treacherous, and full of guile, 
Be he unto me ! this do I beg of God, 
When I am cold in love to you or yours. 4° 

[Embracing Rivers, etc. 
King Edward. A pleasing cordial, princely Buck- 
ingham, 
Is this thy vow unto my sickly heart. 



72 KING RICHARD III. [act ii. 

There wanteth now our brother Gloster here 
To make the blessed period of this peace. 
45 Buckingham. And, in good time, here comes the 
noble duke. 

Enter Gloster. 

Gloster. Good-morrow to my sovereign king and 
queen ; 
And, princely peers, a happy time of day ! 
King Edward. Happy, indeed, as we have spent 
the day. 
Brother, we have done deeds of charity ; 
50 Made peace of enmity, fair love of hate, 

Between these swelling, wrong-incensed peers. 

Gloster. A blessed labor, my most sovereign liege. 
Amongst this princely heap, if any here, 
By false intelligence, or wrong surmise, 
55 Hold me a foe ; 

If I unwittingly, or in my rage, 
Have aught committed that is hardly borne 
By any in this presence, I desire 
To reconcile me to his friendly peace : 
60 'Tis death to me to be at enmity ; 

I hate it, and desire all good men's iove. 
First, madam, I entreat true peace of you, 
Which I will purchase with my duteous service ; 
Of you, my noble cousin Buckingham, 
65 If ever any grudge were lodged between us ; 
Of you, Lord Rivers, and, Lord Grey, of you, 
That all without desert have frown' d on me ; — 
Dukes, earls, lords, gentlemen ; indeed, of all. 
I do not know that Englishman alive 
70 With whom my soul is any jot at odds 
More than the infant that is born to-night : 
I thank my God for my humility. 

Queen Elizabeth. A holy day shall this be kept 
hereafter : 



sc. i.] KING RICHARD III. 73 

I would to God all strifes were well compounded. 
My sovereign liege, I do beseech your highness 75 
To take our brother Clarence to your grace. 

Gloster. Why, madam, have I offered love for 
this, 
To be so flouted in this royal presence ? 
Who knows not that the gentle duke is dead ? 

[ They all start. 
You do him injury to scorn his corse. 80 

King Edward. Who knows not he is dead ? who 

knows he is ? 
Queen Elizabeth. All-seeing heaven, what a world 

is this ! 
Buckingham. Look I so pale, Lord Dorset, as the 

rest? 
Dorset. Ay, my good lord ; and no man in the 
presence 
But his red color hath forsook his cheeks. 8$ 

King Edivard. Is Clarence dead ? the order was 

revers'd. 
Gloster. But he, poor man, by your first order 
died, 
And that a winged Mercury did bear ; 
Some tardy cripple bore the countermand 
That came too lag to see him buried : 90 

God grant that some, less noble and less loyal, 
Nearer in bloody thoughts, but not in blood, 
Deserve not worse than wretched Clarence did, 
And yet go current from suspicion ! 

Enter Stanley. 

Stanley. A boon, my sovereign, for my service 

done ! 95 

King Edward. I prithee, peace : my soul is full 
of sorrow. 

Stanley. I will not rise unless your highness hear 
me. 



74 KING RICHARD III. [act it. 

King Edward. Then say at once, what is it thou 

deniand'st. 
Stanley. The forfeit, sovereign, of my servant's 
life; 
i oo Who slew to-day a riotous gentleman 
Lately attendant on the Duke of Norfolk. 
King Edward. Have I a tongue to doom my 
brother's death, 
And shall that tongue give pardon to a slave ? 
My brother kill'd no man, his fault was thought, 
105 And yet his punishment was bitter death. 
Who sued to me for hirn ? who, in my wrath, 
Kneel' d at my feet, and bade me be advis'd? 
Who spoke of brotherhood ? who spoke of love ? 
Who told me how the poor soul did forsake 
1 10 The mighty Warwick, and did fight for me ? 
Who told me, in the field by Tewksbury, 
When Oxford had me down, he rescued me, 
ir brother, live, and be a king f 
when we both lay in the field 
1 1 5 Frozen almost to death, how he did lap me 
Even in his garments, and did give himself, 
All thin and naked, to the numb-cold night ? 
All this from my remembrance brutish wrath 
Sinfully pluck' d, and not a man of you 
1 20 Had so much grace to put it in my mind. 

But, when your carters or your waiting- vassals 
Have done a drunken slaughter, and defac'd 
The precious image of our dear Redeemer, 
You straight are on your knees for pardon, pardon; 
125 And I, unjustly too, must grant it you : 
But for my brother not a man would speak, 
Nor I, ungracious, speak unto myself 
For him, poor soul. The proudest of you all 
Have been beholding to him in his life ; 
130 Yet none of you would once plead for his life. 



sc. ii.] KING RICHARD III. 75 

God ! I fear thy justice will take hold 

On me, and you, and mine, and yours, for this ! 
Come, Hastings, help me to my closet. 
Ah, poor Clarence ! 

[Exeunt King, Queen, Hastings, Rivers, Dor- 
set, and Grey. 
Gloster. This is the fruit of rashness ! Mark'd 

you not 1 3 5 

How that the guilty kindred of the queen 
Look'd pale when they did hear of Clarence 7 

death ? 
Oh ! they did urge it still unto the king : 
God will revenge it. Come, lords, will you go 
To comfort Edward with our company ? 1 40 

Buckingham. We wait upon your grace. 

[Exeunt. 

SCENE II.— Another Room in the Palace. 

Enter the Duchess of York, with a Son and 
Daughter of Clarence. 

Son. Tell me, good grandam, is our father dead? 

Duchess. No, boy. 

Daughter. Why do you wring your hands, and 
beat your breast, 
And cry, O Clarence, my unhappy son ! 

Son. Why do you look on us, and shake your 
head, 5 

And call us orphans, wretches, castaways, 
If that our noble father be alive? 

Duchess. My pretty cousins, you mistake me both ; 

1 do lament the sickness of the king, 

As loth to lose him, not your father's death : 10 

It were lost sorrow to wail one that 's lost. 
Son. Then you conclude, my grandam, he is 
dead. 



76 KING RICHARD III. [act ii. 

The king, my uncle, is to blame for this : 
God will revenge it ; whom I will importune 
1 5 With earnest prayers all to that effect. 
Daughter. And so will I. 

Duchess. Peace, children, peace ! the king doth 
love you well : 
Incapable and shallow innocents, 
You cannot guess who caus'd your father's death. 
20 Son. Grandam, we can ; for my good uncle 
Gloster 
Told me the king, provoked by the queen, 
Devis'd impeachments to imprison him : 
And, when my uncle told me so, he wept, 
And hugg'd me in his arm, and kiss'd my cheek ; 
2 5 Bade me rely on him as on my father, 
And he would love me dearly as his child. 
Duchess. Ah, that deceit should steal such gentle 
shapes, 
And with a virtuous visor hide foul guile ! 
He is my son ; ay, and therein my shame. 
3° Yet from my dugs he drew not this deceit. 

Son. Think you my uncle did dissemble, gran- 
dam ? 
Duchess. Ay, boy. 

Son. I cannot think it. Hark ! what n oise is 
this? 

Enter Queen Elizabeth, distractedly ; Rivers 
and Dorset following her. 

Queen Elizabeth. Ah ! who shall hinder me to 
wail and weep, 
35 To chide my fortune, and torment myself? 
I '11 join with black despair against my soul, 
And to myself become an enemy. 
Duchess. What means this scene of rude im- 
patience ? 



sc. il] KING RICHARD III. 77 

Queen Elizabeth. To make an act of tragic 
violence : 
Edward, my lord, thy son, our king, is dead. 40 

Why grow the branches when the root is gone ? 
Why wither not the leaves that want their sap ? 
If you will live, lament ; if die, be brief ; 
That our swift-winged souls may catch the king's ; 
Or, like obedient subjects, follow him 45 

To his new kingdom of perpetual rest. 
Duchess. Ah, so much interest have I in thy 
sorrow 
As I had title in thy noble husband ! 
I have bewept a worthy husband's death, 
And liv'd by looking on his images : 50 

But now two mirrors of his princely semblance 
Are crack' d in pieces by malignant death ; 
And I for comfort have but one false glass, 
That grieves me when I see my shame in him. 
Thou art a widow ; yet thou art a mother, 55 

And hast the comfort of thy children left ; 
But death hath snatch' d my husband from mine 

arms, 
And pluck' d two crutches from my feeble hands, 
Clarence and Edward. O, what cause have I 
(Thine being but a moiety of my moan) 60 

To over-go thy plaints, and drown thy cries ! 
Son. Ah, aunt ! you wept not for our father's 
death ; 
How can we aid you with our kindred tears ? 
Daughter. Our fatherless distress was left un- 
moan'd ; 
Your widow-dolor likewise be unwept ! 65 

Queen Elizabeth. Give me no help in lamen- 
tation ; 
I am not barren to bring forth complaints : 
All springs reduce their currents to mine eyes 



78 KING RICHARD III. [act ii. 

That I, being govern 'd by the watery moon, 
70 May sent forth plenteous tears to drown the world ! 
Ah for my husband, for my dear Lord Edward ! 
Children. Ah for our father, for our dear Lord 

Clarence ! 
Duchess. Alas for both, both mine, Edward and 

Clarence ! 
Queen Elizabeth. What stay had I but Edward? 
and he 's gone. 
75 Children. What stay had we but Clarence? and 
he 's gone. 
Duchess. What stay had I but they ? and they 

are gone. 
Queen Elizabeth. Was never widow had so dear 

a loss ! 
Children. Were never orphans had so dear a loss ! 
Duchess. Was never mother had so dear a loss ! 
80 Alas, I am the mother of these griefs ! 
Their woes are parcell'd, mine are general. 
She for an Edward weeps, and so do I ; 
I for a Clarence weep, so doth not she ; 
These babes for Clarence weep, and so do I ; 
85 I for an Edward weep, so do not they : 
Alas, you three, on me, threefold distress'd, 
Pour all your tears ! I am your sorrow's nurse, 
And I will pamper it with lamentations. 
Dorset. Comfort, dear mother : God is much dis- 
pleas'd 
90 That you take with unthankfulness his doing ; 
In common worldly things, 'tis called ungrateful, 
With dull unwillingness to repay a debt 
Which with a bounteous hand was kindly lent ; 
Much more to be thus opposite with heaven, 
95 For it requires the royal debt it lent you. 

Rivers. Madam, bethink you, like a careful 
mother, 



sc. ii.] KING RICHARD III. 79 

Of the young prince, your son : send straight for 

him, 
Let him be crown 'd ; in him your comfort lives : 
Drown desperate sorrow in dead Edward's grave, 
And plant your joys in living Edward's throne. ioo 

Enter Gloster, Buckingham, Stanley, 
Hastings, Ratceiff, and others. 

Gloster. Sister, have comfort : all of us have cause 
To wail the dimming of our shining star ; 
But none can cure their harms by wailing them. 
Madam, my mother, I do cry you mercy, 
I did not see your grace : — humbly on my knee 105 
I crave your blessing. 

Duchess. God bless thee, and put meekness in 
thy breast, 
Love, charity, obedience, and true duty ! 

Gloster. Amen ; and make me die a good old 
man ! — 
That is the butt-end of a mother's blessing ; no 

I marvel that her grace did leave it out. [Aside. 

Buckingham. You cloudy princes and heart-sor- 
rowing peers, 
That bear this mutual heavy load of moan, 
Now cheer each other in each other's love : 
Though we have spent our harvest of this king, 1 1 5 
We are to reap the harvest of his son. 
The broken rancor of your high-swoln hearts, 
But lately splinter'd, knit, and join'd together, 
Must gently be preserv'd, cherish'd, and kept : 
Me seemeth good, that, with some little train, 1 20 

Forthwith from Ludlow the young king be fetch'd 
Hither to London to be crown' d our king. 

Rivers. Why with some little train, my Lord of 
Buckingham ? 

Buckingham. Marry, my lord, lest by a multi- 
tude, 



80 KING RICHARD III [act ii. 

125 The new-heal'd wound of malice should break out ; 
Which would be so much the more dangerous 
By how much the estate is green and yet un- 

govern 'd : 
Where every horse bears his commanding rein, 
And may direct his course as please himself, 
130 As well the fear of harm, as harm apparent, 
In my opinion, ought to be prevented. 

Gloster. I hope the king made peace with all 
of us ; 
And the compact is firm and true in me. 
Rivers. And so in me ; and so, I think, in all : 
135 Yet, since it is but green, it should be put 
To no apparent likelihood of breach, 
Which, haply, by much comp'ny might be urg'd ; 
Therefore I say, with noble Buckingham, 
That it is meet so few should fetch the prince. 
140 Hastings. And so say I. 

Gloster. Then be it so ; and go we to determine 
Who they shall be that straight shall post to 

Ludlow. 
Madam, and you, my sister, will you go 
To give your censures in this business ? 

145 %7cTesf HZabeth ' } With a11 our hearts ' 

[Exeunt all but Buckingham and Gloster. 
Buckingham. My lord, whoever journeys to the 
prince, 
For God's sake, let not us two stay at home : 
For, by the way, I '11 sort occasion, 
As index to the story we late talk'd of, 
1 50 To part the queen's proud kindred from the prince. 
Gloster. My other self, my counsel's consistory, 
My oracle, my prophet ! My dear cousin, 
I, as a child, will go by thy direction. 
Towards Ludlow then, for we'll not stay behind. 

[Exeunt. 



sc. iil] KING RICHARD III. 81 

SCENE III.— London. A Street. 

Enter two Citizens, meeting. 

First Citizen. Good-morrow, neighbor ; whither 

away so fast ? 
Second Citizen. I promise you, I scarcely know 
myself : 
Hear you the news abroad ? 
First Citizen. Ay, that the king is dead. 

Second Citizen. Ill news, by 'r lady ; seldom 
comes the better. 
I fear, I fear 'twill prove a troublous world. 5 

Enter another Citizen. 

Third Citizen. Neighbors, God speed ! 

First Citizen. Give you good-morrow, sir. 

Third Citizen. Doth this news hold of good King 

Edward's death? 
Second Citizen. Ay, sir, it is too true ; God help 

the while ! 
Third Citizen. Then, masters, look to see a troub- 
lous world. 
First Citizen. No, no ; by God's good grace his 

son shall reign. 10 

Third Citizen. Woe to that land that 's govern'd 

by a child ! 
Second Citizen. In him there is a hope of govern- 
ment ; 
That, in his nonage, council under him, 
And, in his full and ripen'd years, himself, 
No doubt, shall then and till then govern well. 15 
First Citizen. So stood the state when Henry the 
Sixth 
Was crown'd in Paris but at nine months old. 
Third Citizen. Stood the state so? No, no, good 
friends, God wot ; 
For then this land was famously enrich' d 



82 KING RICHARD III. [act ii. 

20 With politic grave counsel ; then the king 
Had virtuous uncles to protect his grace. 
First Citizen. Why, so hath this, both by the 

father and mother. 
Third Citizen. Better it were they all came by 
the father, 
Or by the father there were none at all : 
25 For emulation now who shall be nearest 
Will touch us all too near, if God prevent not. 
O, full of danger is the Duke of Gloster ; 
And the queen's sons and brothers haught and 

proud : 
And were they to be rul'd, and not to rule, 
3° This sickly land might solace as before. 

First Citizen. Come, come, we fear the worst ; all 

will be well. 
Third Citizen. When clouds are seen, wise men 
put on their cloaks ; 
When great leaves fall, the winter is at hand ; 
When the sun sets, who doth not look for night ? 
35 Untimely storms make men expect a dearth : 
All may be well ; but, if God sort it so, 
'Tis more than we deserve or I expect. 
Second Citizen. Truly, the hearts of men are full 
of fear : 
You cannot reason almost with a man 
40 That looks not heavily and full of dread. 

Third Citizen. Before the times of change, still 
is it so : 
By a divine instinct men's minds mistrust 
Ensuing danger ; as, by proof, we see 
The waters swell before a boist'rous storm. 
45 But leave it all to God. Whither away? 

Second Citizen. Marry, we were sent for to the 

justices. 
Third Citizen. And so was I ; I '11 bear you 
company. [Exeunt, 



sc. iv.] KING RICHARD III. 83 

SCENE TV.— The same. A Room in the Palace. 

Enter the Archbishop of York, the young Duke 
of York, Queen Elizabeth, and the Duch- 
ess of York.. 

Archbishop. Last night, I hear, they lay at 
Northampton ; 
At Stony-Stratford will they be to-night : 
To-morrow, or next day, they will be here. 
Duchess. I long with all my heart to see the 
prince : 
I hope he is much grown since last I saw him. 5 
Queen Elizabeth. But I hear, no; they say my 
son of York 
Has almost overta'en him in his growth. 

York. Ay, mother ; but I would not have it so. 
Duchess. Why, my good cousin? it is good to 

grow. 
York. Grandam, one night, as we did sit at 

supper, IO 

My uncle Rivers talk'd how I did grow 
More than my brother ; Ay % quoth my uncle Gloster, 
Small herbs have grace, great weeds do grow apace : 
And since, methinks, I would not grow so fast, 
Because sweet flowers are slow, and weeds make 

haste. 1 5 

Duchess. Good faith, good faith, the saying did 
not hold 
In him that did object the same to thee : 
He was the wretched' st thing when he was young, 
So long a-growing and so leisurely 
That, if his rule were true, he should be gracious. 20 
Archbishop. And so, no doubt, he is, my gracious 

madam. 
Duchess. I hope he is ; but yet let mothers doubt. 
York. Now, by my troth, if I had been re- 
member' d, 



84 KINO RICHARD III. [act ii. 

I could have given my uncle's grace a flout, 
25 To touch his growth nearer than he touch' d mine. 
Duchess. How, my young York? I prithee let 

me hear it. 
York. Marry, they say, my uncle grew so fast 
That he could gnaw a crust at two hours old : 
'Twas full two years ere I could get a tooth. 
3oGrandam, this would have been a biting jest. 

Duchess. I prithee, pretty York, who told thee 

this? 
York. Grandam, his nurse. 
Duchess. His nurse ! why, she was dead ere thou 

wert born. 
York. If 'twere not she, I cannot tell who told 
me. 
35 Queen Elizabeth. A parlous boy : go to, you are 
too shrewd. 
Archbishop. Good madam, be not angry with the 

child. 
Queen Elizabeth. Pitchers have ears. 
Archbishop. Here comes a messenger. 

Enter a Messenger. 

What news ? 
Messenger. Such news, my lord, as grieves me to 
report. 
40 Queen Elizabeth. How doth the prince? 

Messenger. Well, madam, and in health. 

Duchess. What is thy news ? 
Messenger. Lord Rivers and Lord Grey are sent 
to Pomfret, 
With them Sir Thomas Vaughan, prisoners. 
Duchess. Who hath committed them ? 
Messenger. The mighty dukes, 

45 Gloster and Buckingham. 

Queen Elizabeth, For what offense ? 



sc. iv.] KING RICHARD III. 85 

Messenger. The sum of all I can I have disclos'd ; 
Why or for what the nobles were committed 
Is all unknown to me, my gracious lady. 

Queen Elizabeth. Ah me, I see the downfall of 
our house ! 
The tiger now hath seiz'd the gentle hind : 50 

Insulting tyranny begins to jet 
Upon the innocent and aweless throne : 
Welcome, destruction, blood, and massacre ! 
I see, as in a map, the end of all. 

Duchess. Accursed and unquiet wrangling days, 55 
How many of you have mine eyes beheld ! 
My husband lost his life to get the crown ; 
And often up and down my sons were toss'd, 
For me to joy and weep their gain and loss : 
And, being seated, and domestic broils 60 

Clean over blown, themselves, the conquerors, 
Make war upon themselves ; blood against blood, 
Self against self : O preposterous 
And frantic outrage, end thy damned spleen ; 
Or let me die, to look on death no more ! 65 

Queen Elizabeth. Come, come, my boy, we will 
to sanctuary. 
Madam, farewell. 

Duchess. Stay, I will go with you. 

Queen Elizabeth. You have no cause. 

Archbishop. My gracious lady, go. 

[ To the Queen. 
And thither bear your treasure and your goods. 
For my part, I '11 resign unto your grace 70 

The seal I keep : and so betide to me 
As well I tender you and all of yours ! 
Come, I '11 conduct you to the sanctuary. 

[Exeunt. 



86 KING RICHARD III [act in. 



ACT III. 

SCENE I.— London. A Street. 

The trumpets sound. Enter the Prince of Wales, 
Gloster, Buckingham, Cardinal Bour- 
chier, and others. 
Buckingham. Welcome, sweet prince, to London, 

to your chamber. 
Gloster. Welcome, dear cousin, my thoughts' 
sovereign : 
The weary way hath made you melancholy. 
Prince. No, uncle ; but our crosses on the way 
c Have made it tedious, wearisome, and heavy : 
I want more uncles here to welcome me. 
Gloster. Sweet prince, the untainted virtue of 
your years 
Hath not yet div'd into the world's deceit : 
No more can you distinguish of a man 
ioThan of his outward show ; which, God he knows, 
Seldom or never jumpeth with the heart. 
Those uncles which you want were dangerous ; 
Your grace attended to their sugar'd words, 
But look'd not on the poison of their hearts : 
1 5 God keep you from them, and from such false 
friends ! 
Prince. God keep me from false friends ! but 

they were none. 
Gloster. My lord, the Mayor of London comes to 
greet you. 

Enter the Lord Mayor, and his Train. 

Mayor. God bless your grace with health and 

happy days ! 
Prince. I thank you, good my lord ; and thank 

you all. [Exeunt Mayor, etc. 



sc. i.] KING RICHARD III. 87 

I thought my mother and my brother York 20 

Would long ere this have met us on the way : 
Fie, what a slug is Hastings, that he comes not 
To tell us whether they will come or no ! 

Buckingham. And in good time here conies the 
sweating lord. 

Enter Hastings. 

Prince. Welcome, my lord ; what, will our 

mother come? 25 

Hastings. On what occasion, God he knows, not I. 
The queen your mother and your brother York 
Have taken sanctuary ; the tender prince 
Would fain have come with me to meet your grace, 
But by his mother was perforce withheld. 30 

Buckingham. Fie ! what an indirect and peevish 

course 
Is this of hers ! Lord Cardinal, will your grace 
Persuade the queen to send the Duke of York, 
Unto his princely brother presently ? 
If she deny, Lord Hastings, go with him, 35 

And from her jealous arms pluck him perforce. 
Cardinal. My Lord of Buckingham, if my weak 

oratory 
Can from his mother win the Duke of York, 
Anon expect him here ; but, if she be obdurate 
To mild entreaties, God in heaven forbid 40 

We should infringe the holy privilege 
Of blessed sanctuary ! not for all this land 
Would I be guilty of so great a sin. 
Buckingham. You are too senseless-obstinate, my 

lord, 
Too ceremonious and traditional : 45 

Weigh it but with the grossness of this age, 
You break not sanctuary in seizing him. 
The benefit thereof is always granted 



88 KING RICHARD III. [act hi. 

To those whose dealings have deserv'd the place, 
50 And those who have the wit to claim the place : 
This prince hath neither claim'd it nor deserv'd it ; 
And therefore, in mine opinion, cannot have it : 
Then, taking him from thence that is not there, 
You break no privilege nor charter there. 
55 Oft have I heard of sanctuary men ; 
But sanctuary children ne'er till now. 

Cardinal. My lord, you shall o'er-rule my mind 
for once. 
Come on, Lord Hastings, will you go with me? 
Hastings. I go, my lord. 
60 Prince. Good lords, make all the speedy haste 
you may. 

[Exeunt Cardinal and Hastings. 
Say, Uncle Gloster, if our brother come, 
Where shall we sojourn till our coronation? 

Gloster. Where it seems best unto your royal self. 
If I may counsel you, some day or two 
65 Your highness shall repose you at the Tower : 
Then where you please, and shall be thought most 

fit 
For your best health and recreation. 

Prince. I do not like the Tower, of any place. 
Did Julius Caesar build that place, my lord ? 
70 Gloster. He did, my gracious lord, begin that 
place ! 
Which, since, succeeding ages have re-edified. 

Prince. Is it upon record, or else reported 
Successively from age to age, he built it ? 
Buckingham. Upon record, my gracious lord. 
75 Prince. But say, my lord, it were not register' d, 
Methinks the truth should live from age to age, 
As 'twere retail' d to all posterity, 
Even to the general all-ending day. 
Gloster. So wise so young, they say, do never live 
long. [Aside. 



sc. i.] KING RICHARD III 89 

Prince. What say you, uncle ? 80 

Gloster. I say without characters fame lives long. 
[Aside.'] Thus, like the formal vice, Iniquity, 
I moralize two meanings in one word. 

Prince. That Julius Csesar was a famous man : 
With what his valor did enrich his wit, 8 5 

His wit set down to make his valor live : 
Death makes no conquest of this conqueror ; 
For now he lives in fame, though not in life. 
I '11 tell you what, my cousin Buckingham. 

Bucking ham. What, my gracious lord ? 90 

Prince. An if I live until I be a man, 
I '11 win our ancient right in France again, 
Or die a soldier as I liv'd a king. 

Gloster. [Aside.'] Short summers lightly have a 
forward spring. 

Buckingham. Now, in good time, here comes the 

Duke of York. 95 

Enter York, Hastings, and the Cardinal. 

Prince. Richard of York ! how fares our noble 
brother ? 

York. Well, my dread lord ; so must I call you 
now. 

Prince. Ay, brother, to our grief, as it is yours, 
Too late he died that might have kept that title, 
Which by his death hath lost much majesty. 1 00 

Gloster. How fares our cousin, noble Lord of 
York? 

York. I thank you, gentle uncle. O my lord, 
You said that idle weeds are fast in growth : 
The prince, my brother, hath outgrown me far. 

Gloster. He hath, my lord. 

York. And therefore is he idle ? 105 

Gloster. O my fair cousin, I must not say so. 

York. Then he is more beholding to you than I. 



90 KING RICHARD III. [act hi. 

Gloster. He may command me as my sovereign ; 
But you have power in me as a kinsman, 
no York. I pray you, uncle, give me this dagger. 

Gloster. My dagger, little cousin? with all my 

heart. 
Prince. A beggar, brother ? 

York. Of my kind uncle, that I know will give ; 
And being but a toy, which is no grief to give. 
1 1 5 Gloster. A greater gift than that I '11 give my 
cousin. 
York. A greater gift ! O, that 's the sword to it. 
Gloster. Ay, gentle cousin, were it light enough. 
York. O, then, I see, you '11 part with but light 
gifts ; 
In weightier things you '11 say a beggar nay. 
1 20 Gloster. It is too heavy for your grace to wear. 
York. I weigh it lightly, were it heavier. 
Gloster. What, would you have my weapon, little 

lord? 
York. I would, that I might thank you as you 

call me. 
Gloster. How? 
125 York. Little. 

Prince. My Lord of York will still be cross in 
talk ; 
Uncle, your grace knows how to bear with him. 
York. You mean, to bear me, not to bear with 
me : 
Uncle, my brother mocks both you and me : 
1 30 Because that I am little, like an ape, 

He thinks that you should bear me on your shoul- 
ders. 
Buckingham. With what a sharp-provided wit 
he reasons ! 
To mitigate the scorn he gives his uncle 
He prettily and aptly taunts himself : 



sc. i.] KING RICHARD III. 91 

So cunning and so young is wonderful. 135 

Gloster. My lord, will't please you pass along? 
Myself and my good cousin Buckingham 
Will to your mother to entreat of her 
To meet you at the Tower and welcome you. 

York. What, will you go unto the Tower, my 

lord? 140 

Prince. My lord protector needs will have it so. 

York. I shall not sleep in quiet at the Tower. 

Gloster. Why, what should you fear ? 

York. Marry, my uncle Clarence' angry ghost ; 
My grandam told me he was murder' d there. 145 

Prince. I fear no uncles dead. 

Gloster. Nor none that live, I hope. 

Prince. An if they live, I hope I need not fear. 
But come, my lord ; and with a heavy heart, 
Thinking on them, go I unto the Tower. 1 50 

[A sennet. Exeunt Prince, York, Hastings, 
Cardinal,, and Attendants. 

Buckingham. Think you, my lord, this little 
prating York 
Was not incensed by his subtle mother 
To taunt and scorn you thus opprobriously ? 

Gloster. No doubt, no doubt: O, 'tis a parlous 
boy; 
Bold, quick, ingenious, forward, capable ; " * 5 5 

He 's all the mother's, from the top to toe. 

Buckingham. Well, let them rest. — Come hither, 
Catesby. 
Thou'rt sworn as deeply to effect what we intend 
As closely to conceal what we impart : 
Thou know'st our reasons urg'd upon the way ; 1 60 
What think'st thou? is it not an easy matter 
To make William Lord Hastings of our mind, 
For the installment of this noble duke 
In the seat royal of this famous isle ? 



92 KING RICHARD III. [act hi. 

65 Catesby. He for his father's sake so loves the 
prince 
That he will not be won to aught against him. 
Buckingham. What think'st thou, then, of Stan- 
ley? will not he? 
Catesby. He will do all in all as Hastings doth. 
Buckingham, Well, then, no more but this : go, 
gentle Catesby, 
1 70 And, as it were far off, sound thou Lord Hastings 
How he doth stand affected to our purpose ; 
And summon him to-morrow to the Tower 
To sit about the coronation. 
If thou dost find him tractable to us, 
1 7 5 Encourage him, and show him all our reasons : 
If he be leaden, icy-cold, unwilling, 
Be thou so too ; and so break off the talk, 
And give us notice of his inclination : 
For we to-morrow hold divided councils, 
180 Wherein thyself shaft highly be employ'd. 

Gloster. Commend me to Lord William : tell 
him, Catesby, 
His ancient knot of dangerous adversaries 
To-morrow are let blood at Pomfret Castle ; 
And bid my lord, for joy of this good news, 
185 Give Mistress Shore one gentle kiss the more. 

Buckingham. Good Catesby, go, effect this busi- 
ness soundly. 
Catesby. My good lords both, with all the heed 

I can. 
Gloster. Shall we hear from you, Catesby, ere we 

sleep ? 
Catesby. You shall, my lord. 
190 Gloster. At Crosby House, there shall you find 
us both. [Exit Catesby. 

Buckingham. Now, my lord, what shall we do, 
if we perceive 



sc. ii.] KING RICHARD III 93 

Lord Hastings will not yield to our complots? 
Gloster. Chop off his head, man ; somewhat we 
will do ; 
And, look, when I am king, claim thou of me 
The earldom of Hereford, and all the movables 195 
Whereof the king my brother was possess' d. 
Buckingham. I '11 claim that promise at your 

grace's hand. 
Gloster. And look to have it yielded with all 
kindness. 
Come, let us sup betimes that afterwards 
We may digest our complots in some form. 200 

[Exeunt. 

SCENE II.— Before Lord Hastings' House. 

Enter a Messenger. 

Messenger. My lord, my lord ! [Knocking. 

Hastings. [ Within.'] Who knocks? 
Messenger. One from the Lord Stanley. 
Hastings. [Within.'] What is' t o'clock? 
3Iessengcr. Upon the stroke of four. 5 

Enter Hastings. 

Hastings. Cannot thy master sleep these tedious 

nights ? 
Messenger. So it should seem by that I have to 

say. 
Hastings. And then ? 

Messenger. Then certifies your lordship that this 
night 
He dreamt the boar had rased off his helm : 1 o 

Besides, he says there are two councils held ; 
And that may be determin'd at the one 
Which may make you and him to rue at th' other. 
Therefore he sends to know your lordship's pleasure, 



94 KING RICHARD III. [act hi. 

i 5 If presently you will take horse with him, 

And with all speed post with him toward the north 
To shun the danger that his soul divines. 

Hastings. Go, fellow, go, return unto thy lord ; 
Bid him not fear the separated councils : 

20 His honor and myself are at the one, 

And at the other is my good friend Catesby ; 
Where nothing can proceed that toucheth us 
Whereof I shall not have intelligence. 
Tell him his fears are shallow, wanting instance : 

25 And, for his dreams, I wonder he 's so fond 
To trust the mockery of unquiet slumbers : 
To fly the boar before the boar pursues 
Were to incense the boar to follow us, 
And make pursuit where he did mean no chase. 

30 Go, bid thy master rise and come to me ; 
And we will both together to the Tower, 
Where, he shall see, the boar will use us kindly. 
Messenger. My gracious lord, I '11 tell him what 
you say. [Exit. 

Enter Catesby. 

Catesby. Many good-morrows to my noble lord ! 
35 Hastings. Good-morrow, Catesby ; you are early 
stirring ; 
What news, what news, in this our tottering state ? 

Catesby. It is a reeling world, indeed, my lord ; 
And I believe will never stand upright 
Till Richard wear the garland of the realm. 
40 Hastings. How ! wear the garland! dost thou 
mean the crown ? 
Catesby. Ay, my good lord. 

Hastings. I '11 have this crown of mine cut from 
my shoulders 
Before I '11 see the crown so foul misplac'd. 
But canst thou guess that he doth aim at it ? 



sc. ii.] KING RICHARD III. 95 

Catesby. Ay, on my life ; and hopes to find you 45 
forward 
Upon his party for the gain thereof : 
And thereupon he sends you this good news, — 
That this same very day your enemies, 
The kindred of the queen, must die at Pomfret. 

Hastings. Indeed, I am no mourner for that news, 50 
Because they have been still my enemies : 
But, that I '11 give my voice on Richard's side 
To bar my master's heirs in true descent, 
God knows I will not do it, to the death. 

Catesby. God keep your lordship in that gracious 

mind ! 55 

Hastings. But I shall laugh at this a twelvemonth 
hence — 
That they which brought me in my master's hate, 
I live to look upon their tragedy. 
Well, Catesby, ere a fortnight make me older, 
I'll send some packing that yet think not on 't. 60 

Catesby. 'Tis a vile thing to die, my gracious lord, 
When men are unprepar'd and look not for it. 
Hastings. O, monstrous, monstrous ! and so falls 
it out 
With Rivers, Vaughan, Grey : and so 'twill do 
With some men else, who think themselves as safe 65 
As thou and I ; who, as thou know'st, are dear 
To princely Richard and to Buckingham. 

Catesby. The princes both make high account of 

you- 
[Aside.] For they account his head upon the 

bridge. 
Hastings. I know they do ; and I have well de- 

serv'd it. 70 

Enter Stanley. 

Come on, come on ; where is your boar-spear, man ? 



96 KINO RICHARD III. [act hi. 

Fear you the boar, and go so unprovided ? 
Stanley. My lord, good-morrow ; and good-mor- 
row, Catesby : 
You may jest on, but, by the holy rood, 
75 I do not like these several councils, I. 
Hastings. My lord, 
I hold my life as dear as you do yours ; 
And never, in my days, I do protest, 
Was it so precious to me as 'tis now : 
80 Think you, but that I know our state secure, 
I would be so triumphant as I am ? 
Stanley. The lords at Pomfret, when they rode 
from London, 
Were jocund, and suppos'd their states were sure, 
And they, indeed, had no cause to mistrust ; 
85 But yet, you see, how soon the day o'ercast. 
This sudden stab of rancor I misdoubt : 
Pray God, I say, I prove a needless coward ! 
What, shall we toward the Tower ? the day is spent. 
Hastings. Come, come, have with you.— Wot you 
what, my lord ? 
90 To-day the lords you talk of are beheaded. 

Stanley. They, for their truth, might better wear 
their heads 
Than some that have accus'd them wear their hats. 
But come, my lord, let 's away. 

Enter a Pursuivant. 

Hastings. Go on before, I '11 talk with this good 
fellow. 

[Exeunt Stanley and Catesby. 

95 How now, sirrah ! how goes the world with thee ? 

Pursuivant. The better that your lordship please 

to ask. 
Hastings. I tell thee, man, 'tis better with me now 
Than when thou mett'st me last where now we 
meet: 



sc. ii.] KING RICHARD III. 97 

Then was I going prisoner to the Tower 

By the suggestion of the queen's allies ; ioo 

But now, I tell thee — keep it to thyself — 

This day those enemies are put to death, 

And I in better state than e'er I was. 

Pursuivant. God hold it, to your honor's good 
content ! 

Hastings. Graniercy, fellow : there, drink that 

forme. [Throwing him his purse 105 

Pursuivant. God save your lordship. \_Exit^ 

Enter a Priest. 

Priest. Well met, my lord ; I am glad to see your 

honor. 
Hastings. I thank thee, good Sir John, with all 
my heart. 
I 'm in your debt for your last exercise ; 
Come the next Sabbath and I will content you. 1 10 

Enter Buckingham. 

Buckingham. What, talking with a priest, lord 
chamberlain ? 
Your friends at Pomfret, they do need the priest ; 
Your honor hath no shriving work in hand. 
Hastings. Good faith, and when I met this holy 
man, 
The men you talk of came into my mind. 1 1 5 

What, go you toward the Tower ? 
Buckingham. I do, my lord; but long I cannot 
stay there : 
I shall return before your lordship thence. 
Hastings. Nay,like enough, for I stay dinner there. 
Buckingham. And supper too, although thou 

know'st it not. [Aside. 120 

Come, will you go ? 
Hastings. I '11 wait upon your lordship. 

\Exeunt, 



98 KING RICHARD III. [act hi. 

SCENE III.— Pomfret. Before the Castle. 

Enter Ratcliff, with a guard conducting Rivers, 
Grey, and Vaughan to execution. 

Elvers. Sir Richard Ratcliff, let me tell thee this: 
To-day shalt thou behold a subject die 
For truth, for duty, and for loyalty. 

Grey. God keep the prince from all the pack of 
you ! 
5 A knot you are of damned blood-suckers. 

Vaughan. You live that shall cry woe for this 

hereafter. 
Ratcliff. Dispatch ; the limit of your lives is out. 
Rivers. O Pomfret, Pomfret ! O thou bloody 
prison, 
Fatal and ominous to noble peers ! 
10 Within the guilty closure of thy walls 

Richard the Second here was hack'd to death : 
And, for more slander to thy dismal seat, 
We give to thee our guiltless blood to drink. 

Grey. Now Margaret's curse is fall'n upon our 
heads, 
15 When she exclahn'd on Hastings, you, and I, 
For standing by when Richard stabb'd her son. 
Rivers. Then curs'd she Richard, then curs'd she 
Buckingham, 
Then curs'd she Hastings : O, remember, God, 
To hear her prayer for them, as now for us ! 
20 And, for my sister and her princely sons, 
Be satisfied, dear God, with our true blood, 
Which, as thou know'st, unjustly must be spilt. 
Ratcliff. Make haste ; the hour of death is expiate. 
Rivers. Come, Grey, come, Vaughan, let us here 
embrace : 
25 Farewell, until we meet again in heaven. {Exeunt. 



sc. iv.] KINO RICHARD III. 99 

SCENE IV. — London. A Room in the Tower. 

Buckingham, Stanley, Hastings, the Bishop 
op Ely, Ratcliff, Lovel, and others, sitting 
at a table ; Officers of the Council attending. 

Hastings. Now, noble peers, the cause why we 
are met 
Is to determine of the coronation. 
In God's name, speak : when is the royal day ? 
Buckingham. Are all things ready for that royal 

time ? 
Stanley. They are ; and wants but nomination. 5 
Ely. To-morrow, then, I judge a happy day. 
Buckingham. Who knows the lord protector's 
mind herein ? 
Who is most inward with the noble duke ? 

Ely. Your grace, we think, should soonest know 

his mind. 
Buckingham. We know each other's faces : for 

our hearts, IO 

He knows no more of mine than I of yours ; 
Nor I of his, my lord, than you of mine : 
Lord Hastings, you and he are near in love. 
Hastings. I thank his grace, I know he loves me 
well : 
But, for his purpose in the coronation, 15 

I have not sounded him, nor he deliver' d 
His gracious pleasure any way therein : 
But you, my noble lords, may name the time ; 
And in the duke's behalf I '11 give my voice, 
Which, I presume, he '11 take in gentle part. 20 

Enter Gloster. 

Ely. In happy time here comes the duke him- 
self. 

Gloster. My noble lords and cousins all, good- 
morrow. 



100 KING RICHARD III. [act hi. 

I have been long a sleeper ; but, I trust, 
My absence doth neglect no great design, 
25 Which by my presence might have been concluded. 
Buckingham. Had you not come upon your cue, 
my lord, 
William Lord Hastings had pronoune'd your part — 
I mean your voice — for crowning of the king. 
Oloster. Than my Lord Hastings no man might 
be bolder ; 
30 His lordship knows me well, and loves me well. 
My Lord of Ely, when I was last in Holborn, 
I saw good strawberries in your garden there : 
I do beseech you send for some of them. 
Ely. Marry and will, my lord, with all my heart. 

[Exit. 
35 Oloster. Cousin of Buckingham, a word with 
you. [ Takes him aside. 

Catesby hath sounded Hastings in our business, 
And finds the testy gentleman so hot 
That he will lose his head ere give consent 
His master's child, as worshipful he terms it, 
40 Shall lose the royalty of England's throne. 

Buckingham. Withdraw yourself awhile, I '11 go 
with you. 

[Exeunt Gloster and Buckingham. 
Stanley. We have not yet set down this day of 
triumph. 
To-morrow, in my judgment, is too sudden ; 
For I myself am not so well provided 
45 As else I would be were the day prolong' d. 

Be-enter Bishop of Ely. 

Ely. Where is my lord the Duke of Gloster ? 
I have sent for these strawberries. 
Hastings. His grace looks cheerfully and smooth 
to-day ; 



sc. iv KINO RICHARD III. 101 

There's some conceit or other likes him well, 

When he doth bid good-morrow with such spirit. 50 

I think there 's ne'er a man in Christendom 

Can lesser hide his love or hate than he ; 

For by his face straight shall you know his heart. 

Stanley. What of his heart perceive you in his 
face 
By any likelihood he show'd to-day? 55 

Hastings. Marry, that with no man here he is 
offended ; 
For, were he, he had shown it in his looks. 

Re-enter Gloster and Buckingham. 

Oloster. I pray you all, tell me what they deserve 
That do conspire my death with devilish plots 
Of damned witchcraft, and that have prevail' d 60 
Upon my body with their hellish charms ? 

Hastings. The tender love I bear your grace, my 
lord, 
Makes me most forward in this princely presence 
To doom the offenders, whosoe'er they be : 
I say, my lord, they have deserved death. 65 

Oloster. Then be your eyes the witness of their 
evil ! 
Look how I am bewitch' d ; behold mine arm 
Is, like a blasted sapling, wither' d up : 
And this is Edward's wife, that monstrous witch, 
Consorted with that ' cursed woman ' Shore, 70 

That by their witchcraft thus have marked me. 

Hastings. If they have done this deed, my noble 
lord 

Oloster. If! thou protector of this damned ' trull,' 
Talk'st thou to me of ifs ? — Thou art a traitor : 
Off with his head ! now, by Saint Paul I swear 75 
I will not dine until I see the same. 
Lovel and Ratcliff, look that it be done ; 



102 KING RICHARD III [act hi. 

The rest that love me rise and follow me. 

[Exeunt Council, with Gloster and Buckingham. 
Hastings. Woe, woe for England ! not a whit 
for me ; 
80 For I, too fond, might have prevented this. 

Stanley did dream the boar did rase his helm ; 

But I disdain' d it, and did scorn to fly. 

Three times to-day my foot-clolh horse did stumble, 

And startled when he look'd upon the Tower, 
85 As loth to bear me to the slaughter-house. 

O, now I need the priest that spake to me : 

I now repent I told the pursuivant, 

As too triumphing, how mine enemies 

To-day at Pomfret bloodily were butchered, 
90 And I myself secure in grace and favor. 

Margaret, Margaret, now thy heavy curse 
Is lighted on poor Hastings' wretched head ! 

Ratcliff. Dispatch, my lord ; the duke would be 
at dinner ; 
Make a short shrift, he longs to see your head. 
95 Hastings. O momentary grace of mortal men, 
Which we more hunt for than the grace of God ! 
Who builds his hope in air of your good looks 
Lives like a drunken sailor on a mast, 
Ready, with every nod, to tumble down 
:oo Into the fatal bowels of the deep. 

Lovel. Come, come, dispatch ; 'tis bootless to 

exclaim. 
Hastings. O bloody Richard ! — miserable Eng- 
land ! 

1 prophesy the fearfull'st time to thee 
That ever wretched age hath look'd upon. 

105 Come, lead me to the block, bear him my head : 
They smile at me who shortly shall be dead. 

\ Exeunt. 



sc. v.] KING RICHARD III 103 

SCENE Y.— The same. The Tower Walls. 

Enter- Gloster and Buckingham, in rotten 
armor, marvelous ill-favored. 

Gloster. Come, cousin, canst thou quake, and 
change thy color, 
Murder thy breath in middle of a word, 
And then again begin, and stop again, 
As if thou wert distraught and mad with terror? 
Buckingham. Tut, I can counterfeit the deep 
tragedian ; 5 

Speak, and look back, and pry on every side, 
Tremble and start at wagging of a straw, 
Intending deep suspicion : ghastly looks 
Are at my service, like enforced smiles ; 
And botli are ready in their offices, 10 

At any time, to grace my stratagems. 
But what, is Catesby gone? 
Gloster. He is ; and, see, he brings the mayor 
along. 
Enter the Lord Mayor and Catesby. 
Buckingham. Lord Mayor, — 

Gloster. Look to the drawbridge there ! 1 5 

Buckingham. Hark ! a drum. 
Gloster. Catesby, overlook the walls. 
Buckingham. Lord Mayor, the reason we have 

sent — 
Gloster. Look back, defend thee, here are enemies. 
Buckingham. God and our innocency defend and 

guard us ! 20 

Gloster. Be patient, they are friends ; Ratcliffand 
Lovel. 
Enter Lovel and Ratcliff, with Hastings' head. 

Lovel. Here is the head of that ignoble traitor, 
The dangerous and unsuspected Hastings. 



104 'KING RICHARD III. [act hi. 

Gloster. So dear I lov'd the man that I must 
weep. 
25 I took hirn for the plainest harmless creature 
That breath' d upon the earth a Christian ; 
Made him my book, wherein my soul recorded 
The history of all her secret thoughts : 
So smooth he daub'd his vice with show of virtue 
30 That, his apparent open guilt omitted, 
I mean his conversation with Shore's wife, 
He liv'd from all attainder of suspect. 
Buckingham. Well, well, he was the covert'st 
shelter' d traitor 
That ever liv'd. 
35 Would you imagine, or almost believe, 
Were 't not that, by great preservation, 
We live to tell it you, the subtle traitor 
This day had plotted, in the council-house 
To murder me and my good Lord of Gloster ? 
40 Mayor. Had he done so ? 

Gloster. What ! think you we are Turks, or 
infidels? 
Or that we would, against the form of law, 
Proceed thus rashly in the villain's death, 
But that the extreme peril of the case, 
45 The peace of England, and our persons' safety 
Enforc'd us to this execution ? 
Mayor. Now, fair befall you ! he deserv'd his 
death ; 
And your good graces both have well proceeded 
To warn false traitors from the like attempts. 
50 1 never look'd for better at his hands, 
After he once fell in with Mistress Shore. 

Gloster. Yet had we not determin'd he should 
die, 
Until your lordship came to see his end ; 
Which now the loving haste of these our friends, 



sc. v.] KING RICHARD III. 105 

Something against our meaning, hath prevented : 55 
Because, my lord, we would have had you heard 
The traitor speak, and timorously confess 
The manner and the purpose of his treason ; 
That you might well have signified the same 
Unto the citizens, who, haply, may 60 

Misconstrue us in him, and wail his death. 

Mayor. But, my good lord, your grace's word 
shall serve 
As well as I had seen and heard him speak : 
And do not doubt, right noble princes both, 
But 1 '11 acquaint our duteous citizens 65 

With all your just proceedings in this case. 

Gloster. And to that end we wish'd your lordship 
here, 
T' avoid the censures of the carping world. 

Buckingham. But, since you came too late of our 
intent, 
Yet witness what you hear we did intend : 70 

And so, my good Lord Mayor, we bid farewell. 

[Exit Lord Mayor. 

Gloster. Go after, after, cousin Buckingham. 
The mayor towards Guildhall hies him in all post : 
There, at your meetest vantage of the time, 
Infer the bastardy of Edward's children : 75 

Tell them how Edward put to death a citizen 
Only for saying he would make his son 
Heir to the crown ; meaning, indeed, his house, 
Which by the sign thereof was termed so. 
Moreover, urge his hateful luxury, 80 

Which stretch'd unto their servants, daughters, 

wives, 
Even where his raging eye or savage heart, 
Without control, listed to make his prey. 
Nay, for a need, thus far come near my person : 
Tell them, when that my mother went with child 85 



106 KING RICHARD III. [act iii. 

Of that insatiate Edward, noble York 
My princely father then had wars in France ; 
And, by just computation of the time, 
Found that the issue was not his begot ; 
90 Which well appeared in his lineaments, 

Being nothing like the noble duke my father : 
But touch this sparingly, as 'twere far off; 
Because, my lord, you know my mother lives. 
Buckingham. Doubt not, my lord, I '11 play the 
orator 
9 5 As if the golden fee for which I plead 
Were for myself : and so, my lord, adieu. 

Gloster. If you thrive weil, bring them to Bay- 
nard's Castle ; 
Where you shall And me well accompanied 
With rev' rend fathers and well-learned bishops. 
100 Buckingham. I go ; and, towards three or four 
o'clock, 
Look for the news that the Guildhall affords. 

[Exit Buckingham. 

Gloster Go, Lovel, with all speed to Doctor Shaw. 

Go thou [ To C atesby] to Friar Penker ;— bid them 

both 
Meet me, within this hour, at Baynard's Castle. 

[Exeunt Lovel and Catesby. 
105 Now will I in to take some privy order 
To draw the brats of Clarence out of sight, 
And to give notice that no manner of person 
Hav 't any time recourse unto the princes. [Exit. 

SCENE VI.— The same. A Street. 
Enter a Scrivener. 
Scrivener. This is the indictment of the good 
Lord Hastings ; 
Which in a set hand fairly is engross' d 



sc. vii.] KING RICHARD III. 107 

That it may be to-day read o'er in Paul's. 

And mark how well the sequel hangs together : 

Eleven hours I 've spent to write it over, 5 

For yesternight by Catesby was it sent me ; 

The precedent was full as long a-doing : 

And yet within these five hours Hastings liv'd, 

Untainted, unexamin'd, free, at liberty. 

Here 's a good world the while ! Who is so gross 10 

That cannot see this palpable device ? 

Yet who so bold but says he sees it not ? 

Bad is the. world ; and all will come to naught 

When such ill-dealing must be seen in thought. 

[Exit. 

SCENE VII.— The same. Court of Baynard '« 
Castle. 
Enter Gloster and Buckingham, meeting. 
Oloster. How now, my lord ! what say the citi- 
zens ? 
Buckingham. The citizens are mum, say not a 

word. 
Gloster. Touch 'd you the bastardy of Edward's 

children ? 
Buckingham. I did ; with his contract with Lady 
Lucy, 
And his contract by deputy in France : 5 

Th' insatiate greediness of his desires, 
And his enforcement of the city wives ; 
His tyranny for trifles ; his own bastardy, 
As being got, your father then in France, 
And his resemblance, being not like the duke. 10 
Withal, I did infer your lineaments, 
Being the right idea of your father, 
Both in your form, and nobleness of mind ; 
Laid open all your victories in Scotland, 



108 KING RICHARD III [act hi. 

i 5 Your discipline in war, wisdom in peace, 
Your bounty, virtue, fair humility ; 
Indeed, left nothing fitting for your purpose 
TJntouch'd, or slightly handled, in discourse. 
And, when rny oratory grew toward end, 
20 1 bade them that did love their country's good 
Cry, God save Richard, England's royal king ! 
Gloster. And did they so? 

Buckingham. No, so God help me, they spake 
not a word ; 
But, like dumb statuas or breathing stones, 
25 Btar'd each on other, and look'd deadly pale. 
Which when I saw, I reprehended them ; 
And ask'd the mayor what meant this willful 

silence : 
His answer was, the people were not wont 
To be spoke to but by the recorder. 
30 Then he was urg'd to tell my tale again ; 

Thus saith the duke, thus hath the duke inferred; 
But nothing spake in warrant from himself. 
When he had done, some followers of mine own, 
At lower end o' the hall, hurl'd up their caps, 
35 And some ten voices cried, God save King Richard ! 
And thus I took the vantage of those few : 
Thanks, gentle citizens and friends, quoth I ; 
This general applause and cheerful shout 
Argues your wisdom, and your love to Richard: 
4° And even here brake off, and came away. 

Oloster. What tongueless blocks were they ! 

Would they not speak ? 
Buckingham. No, by my troth, my lord. 
Gloster. Will not the mayor then and 's breth- 
ren come ? 
Buckingham. The mayor is here at hand : intend 
some fear ; 
45 Be not you spoke with but by mighty suit : 



sc. vii.] KING RICHARD III 109 

And look you get a prayer-book in your hand, 
And stand between two churchmen, good my lord; 
For on that ground I '11 make a holy descant : 
And be not eas'ly won to our requests : 
Play the maid's part ; still answer nay, and take it. 50 

Gloster. I go ; and if you plead as well for them 
As I can say nay to thee for myself, 
No doubt we bring it to a happy issue. 

Buckingham. Go, go, up to the leads ; the Lord 
Mayor knocks. [Exit Gloster. 

Enter the Lord Mayor, Aldermen, and Citizens. 

Welcome, my lord ; I dance attendance here ; 55 

I think the duke will not be spoke withal. 

Enter from the Castle, Catesby. 

Now, Catesby, what says your lord to my request? 

Catesby. He doth entreat your grace, my noble 
lord, 
To visit him to-morrow, or next day : 
He is within, with two right rev'rend fathers, 60 

Divinely bent to meditation : 
And in no worldly suit would he be mov'd, 
To draw him from his holy exercise. 

Buckingham. Return, good Catesby, to the gra- 
cious duke ; 
Tell hirn myself, the mayor, and citizens, 65 

In deep designs, in matter of great moment, 
No less importing than our general good, 
Are come to have some conference with his grace. 

Catesby. I '11 signify so much unto him straight. 

{Exit. 

Buckingham. Ah, ha, my lord, this prince is not 70 
an Edward ! 
He is not lolling on a lewd day-bed, 
But on his knees at meditation ; 



110 KING RICHARD III. [act in. 

Not dallying with a brace of courtezans, 
But meditating with two deep divines ; 
75 Not sleeping to engross his idle body, 
But praying to enrich his watchful soul : 
Happy were England, would this virtuous prince 
Take on his grace the sovereignty thereof : 
But sore I fear we shall not win him to it. 
80 Mayor. Marry, God defend his grace should say 
us nay ! 
Buckingham. I fear he will. Here Catesby 
comes again ; 

Re-enter Catesby. 

Now, Catesby, what says his grace? 
Catesby. He wonders to what end you have as- 
sembled 
Such troops of citizens to speak with him, 
85 His grace not being warn'd thereof before ; 
He fears, my lord, you mean no good to him. 

Buckingham. Sorry I am my noble cousin should 
Suspect me, that I mean no good to him : 
By heaven, we come to him in perfect love ; 
00 And so once more return and tell his grace. 

[JBxtt Catesby. 
When holy and devout religious men 
Are at their beads, 'tis much to draw them thence, 
So sweet is zealous contemplation. 

Enter Gloster, in a gallery above, between two 
Bishops. Catesby returns. 

Mayor. See, where his grace stands 'tween two 
clergymen ! 
95 Buckingham. Two props of virtue for a Christian 
prince 
To stay him from the fall of vanity : 
And, see, a book of prayer in his hand, 



sc. vil] KINO RICHARD III. Ill 

True ornament to know a holy man. 

Famous Plantagenet, most gracious prince, 

Lend favorable ear to our requests ; ioo 

And pardon us the interruption 

Of thy devotion and right Christian zeal. 

Oloster. My lord, there needs no such apology ; 
I rather do beseech you pardon me, 
Who, earnest in the service of my God, io c 

Neglect the visitation of my friends. 
But, leaving this, what is your grace's pleasure? 

Buckingham. Even that, I hope, which pleaseth 
God above, 
And all good men of this ungovern'd isle. 

Oloster. I do suspect I have done some offense t IO 
That seems disgracious in the city's eyes, 
And that you come to reprehend my ignorance. 

Buckingham. You have, my lord : would it 
might please your grace, 
On our entreaties, to amend your fault ! 

Oloster. Else wherefore breathe I in a Christian 

land ? 115 

Buckingham. Know, then, it is your fault that 

you resign 
The supreme seat, the throne majestical, 
The scepter' d office of your ancestors, 
Your state of fortune, and your due of birth, 
The lineal glory of your royal house 120 

To the corruption of a blemish 'd stock : 
Whiles, in the mildness of your sleepy thoughts, 
Which here we waken to our country's good, 
This noble isle doth want her proper limbs ; 
Her face defac'd with scars of infamy, 125 

Her royal stock graft with ignoble plants, 
And almost shoulder' d in the swallowing gulf 
Of blind forgetfulness and dark oblivion. 
Which to re-cure, we heartily solicit 



112 KING RICHARD III. [act hi. 

i 30 Your gracious self to take on you the charge 
And kingly government of this your land : 
Not as protector, steward, substitute, 
Or lowly factor for another's gain ; 
But as successively, from blood to blood, 

135 Your right of birth, your empery, your own. 
For this, consorted with the citizens, 
Your very worshipful and loving friends, 
And by their vehement instigation, 
In this just suit come I to move your grace. 

140 Oloster. I know not whe'r to depart in silence 
Or bitterly to speak i n your reproof 
Best fitteth my degree or your condition : 
If not to answer, you might haply think 
Tongue-tied ambition, not replying, yielded 

145 To bear the golden yoke of sovereignty, 

Which fondly you would here impose on me ; 
If to reprove you for this suit of yours, 
So season' d with your faithful love to me, 
Then, on the other side, I check' d my friends. 

1 5° Therefore, to speak, and to avoid the first, 
And then, in speaking, not t' incur the last, 
Definitively thus I answer you : 
Your love deserves my thanks ; but my desert 
Unmeritable shuns your high request. 

155 First, if all obstacles were cut away, 

And that my path were even to the crown, 
As the ripe revenue and due of birth, 
Yet so much is my poverty of spirit, 
So mighty and so many my defects 

160 That I had rather hide me from my greatness, 
Being a bark to brook no mighty sea, 
Than in my greatness covet to be hid, 
And in the vapor of my glory smother' d. 
But, God be thank' d, there is no need of me, 

165 And much I need to help you, were there need ; 



sc. vii.] KING RICHARD III. 113 

The royal tree hath left us royal fruit, 
Which, mellow'd by the stealing hours of time, 
Will well become the seat of majesty, 
And make, no doubt, us happy by his reign. 
On him I lay that you would lay on me, 17° 

The right and fortune of his happy stars ; 
Which God defend that I should wring from him ! 
Buckingham. My lord, this argues conscience in 
your grace ; 
But the respects thereof are nice and trivial, 
All circumstances well considered. 1 7 5 

You say that Edward is your brother's son ; 
So say we too, but not by Edward's wife : 
For first was he contract to Lady Lucy— 
Your mother lives a witness to that vow, — 
And afterwards by substitute betroth' d 180 

To Bona, sister to the king of France. 
These both put by, a poor petitioner, 
A care-craz'd mother to a many sons, 
A beauty-waning and distressed widow, 
Even in the afternoon of her best days, 185 

Made prize and purchase of his wanton eye, 
Seduc'd the pitch and height of all his thoughts 
To base declension and loath 'd bigamy ; 
By her, in his unlawful union he 
Had Edward, whom our manners call the prince. 190 
More bitterly could I expostulate, 
Save that, for reverence to some alive, 
I give a sparing limit to my tongue. 
Then, good my lord, take to your royal self 
This proffer' d benefit of dignity ; 195 

If not to bless us and the land withal, 
Yet to draw forth your noble ancestry 
From the corruption of abusing times, 
Unto a lineal, true-derived course. 
Mayor. Do, good my lord ; your citizens entreat 200 
you, 



114 KING RICHARD III [act m. 

Buckingham. Refuse not, mighty lord, this prof- 
fer' d love. 
Catesby. O, make them joyful, grant their lawful 

suit ! 
Oloster. Alas, why would you heap those cares 
I am unfit for state and majesty : [on me? 

205 I do beseech you take it not amiss ; 
I cannot, nor I will not, yield to you. 
Buckingham. If you refuse it, — as in love and 
zeal 
Loth to depose the child, your brother's son, 
As well we know your tenderness of heart 
210 And gentle, kind, effeminate remorse, 
Which we have noted in you to your kin, 
And equally, indeed, to all estates, — 
Yet, whether you accept our suit or no, 
Your brother's son shall never reign our king ; 
215 But we will plant some other in the throne, 
To the disgrace and downfall of your house : 
And in this resolution here we leave you. 
Come, citizens, we will entreat no more. 

[Exit Buckingham ; the Mayor, Aldermen, 
and Citizens retiring. 
Catesby. Call them again, sweet prince, accept 
their suit ; 
220 if you deny them, all the land will rue it. 

Oloster. Will you enforce me to a world of cares? 
Call them again. [Catesby goes to the Mayor, 
etc. , and then exit. ] 

I am not made of stone, 
But penetrable to your kind entreaties, 
Albeit against my conscience and my soul. 

Re-enter Buckingham and Catesby; the 
Mayor, etc., coming forward. 

22$ Cousin of Buckingham, and sage, grave men, 



sc. vil] KING RICHARD 111. 115 

Since you will buckle fortune on my back, 
To bear her burden, whe'r I will or no, 
I must have patience to endure the load : 
But, if black scandal or foul-fac'd reproach 
Attend the sequel of your imposition, 230 

Your mere enforcement shall acquittance me 
From all the impure blots and stains thereof : 
For God he knows, and you may partly see, 
How far I am from the desire of this. 
Mayor. God bless your grace ! we see it, and will 

say it. 235 

Oloster. In saying so you shall but say the truth. 
Buckingham. Then I salute you with this royal 
title- 
Long live King Richard, England's worthy king ! 
All. Amen. 
Buckingham. To-morrow may it please you to 

be crown'd? 240 

Oloster. Even when you please, since you will 

have it so. 
Buckingham. To-morrow, then, we will attend 
your grace ; 
And so most joyfully we take our leave. 

Oloster. Come, let us to our holy task again : — 

[ To the Bishops. 
Farewell, good cousin ; — farewell, gentle friends. 245 

[Exeunt. 



116 KING RICHARD III [act iv. 

ACT IV. 

SCENE I.— Before the Tower. 

Enter, on one side, Queen Elizabeth, Duchess 
op York, and Marquis of Dorset ; on the 
other, Anne Duchess op Gloster, leading 
Lady Margaret Plantagenet, Clarence's 
young daughter. 

Duchess. Who meets us here ? — my niece Plan- 
tagenet, 
Led in the hand of her kind aunt of Gloster ? 
Now, for my life, she's wand'ring to the Tower 
On pure heart's love to greet the tender princes. 
5 Daughter, well met. 

Anne. God give your graces both 

A happy and a joyful time of day ! 

Queen Elizabeth. As much to you, good sister ! 

Whither away ? 
Anne. No further than the Tower ; and, as I 
guess, 
Upon the like devotion as yourselves, 
10T0 gratulate the gentle princes there. 

Queen Elizabeth. Kind sister, thanks ; we'll 
enter all together : 
And, in good time, here the lieutenant comes. 

Enter Brakenbury. 

Master lieutenant, pray you, by your leave, 
How doth the prince, and my young son of York ? 
1 5 Brakenbury. Right well, dear madam. By your 
patience, 
I may not suffer you to visit them ; 
The king hath strictly charg'd the contrary. 



sc. i.] KING RICHARD III. 117 

Queen Elizabeth. The king! why, who 's that? 

Brakenbury. I mean the lord protector. 

Queen Elizabeth. The Lord protect him from 

that kingly title ! 

Hath he set bounds between their love and me ? 20 

I am their mother ; who shall bar me from them ? 

Duchess. I am their father's mother ; I will see 

them. 
Anne. Their aunt I am in law, in love their 
mother : 
Then bring me to their sights ; I '11 bear thy 

blame, 
And take thy office from thee, on my peril. 25 

Brakenbury. No, madam, no, I may not leave 
it so ; 
I 'm bound by oath, and therefore pardon me. 

[Exit. 

Enter Stanley. 

Stanley. Let me but meet you, ladies, one hour 
hence, 
And I '11 salute your grace of York as mother 
And rev' rend looker-on of two fair queens. 30 

Come, madam, you must straight to Westminster, 
[ To the Duchess of Glostek. 
There to be crowned Richard's royal queen. 

Queen Elizabeth. Ah, cut my lace in sunder 
That my pent heart may have some scope to beat, 
Or else I swoon with this dead-killing news ! 35 

Anne. Despiteful tidings ! O unpleasing news ! 

Dorset. Be of good cheer : mother, how fares 



your grace 



Queen Elizabeth. O Dorset, speak not to me, get 
thee gone ! 
Death and destruction dog thee at the heels ; 
Thy mother's name is ominous to children. 4° 



118 KING RICHARD III. [act rv. 

If thou wilt outstrip death, go cross the seas, 
And live with Richmond, from the reach of hell. 
Go, hie thee, hie thee, from this slaughter-house, 
Lest thou increase the number of the dead ; 
45 And make me die the thrall of Margaret's curse, 
Nor mother, wife, nor England's counted queen. 
Stanley. Full of wise care is this your counsel, 
madam ; 
Take all the swift advantage of the hours ; 
You shall have letters from me to my son 
50 To meet you on the way and welcome you : 
Be not ta'en tardy by unwise delay. 

Duchess. O ill-dispersing wind of misery ! 
O my accursed womb, the bed of death : 
A cockatrice hast thou hatch'd to the world, 
55 Whose unavoided eye is murderous ! 

Stanley. Come, madam, come; I in all haste 

was sent. 
Anne. And I with all unwillingness will go. 
O, would to God that the inclusive verge 
Of golden metal that must round my brow 
60 Were red-hot steel to sear me to the brain ! 
Anointed let me be with deadly venom, 
And die ere men can say, God save the queen ! 
Queen Elizabeth. Go, go, poor soul, I envy not 
thy glory ; 
To feed my humor wish thj'self no harm. 
65 Anne. No, why ? When he that is my husband 
now 
Came to me as I follow' d Henry's corse, 
When scarce the blood was well wash'd from his 

hands 
Which issued from my other angel husband 
And that dear saint which then I weeping fol- 
low'd, — 
70 O, when, I say, I look'd on Richard's face, 



sc. i.] KING RICHARD III. 119 

This was my wish : Be thou, quoth I, acorns' d 

For making me, so young, so old a widow ! 

And, when thou wedd'st, let sorrow haunt thy bed ; 

And be thy wife — if any be so mad — 

More miserable by the life of thee 75 

Than thou hast made me by my dear lord's death ! 

Lo, ere I can repeat this curse again, 

Within so small a time, my woman's heart 

Grossly grew captive to his honey words, 

And prov'd the subject of mine own soul's curse ; 80 

Which ever since hath held mine eyes from rest ; 

For never yet one hour in his bed 

Did I enjoy the golden dew of sleep, 

But with his timorous dreams was still awak'd. 

Besides, he hates me for my father Warwick ; 85 

And will, no doubt, shortly be rid of me. 

Queen Elizabeth. Poor heart, adieu ! I pity thy 

complaining. 
Anne. No more than from my soul I mourn for 

yours. 
Dorset. Farewell, thou woeful welcomer of 

glory ! 
Anne. Adieu, poor soul, that tak'st thy leave 

of it ! 90 

Duchess. Go thou to Richmond, and good for- 
tune guide thee ! [ To Dorset. 
Go thou to Richard, and good angels tend thee ! 

[ To Anne. 
Go thou to sanctuary, and good thoughts possess 

thee ! [To Queen Elizabeth. 

I to my grave, where peace and rest lie with me ! 
Eighty-odd years of sorrow have I seen, 95 

And each hour's joy wrack'd with a week of teen. 
Queen Elizabeth. Stay yet, look back, with me, 

unto the Tower. 
Pity, you ancient stones, those tender babes 



120 KING RICHARD III. [act iv. 

Whom envy hath immur'd within your walls ! 
i oo Rough cradle for such little prett} r ones ! 
Rude, ragged nurse, old sullen playfellow 
For tender princes, use my babies well ! 
So foolish sorrow bids your stones farewell. 

[Exeunt. 

SCENE II. — A Room of State in the Palace. 

Sennet. Richard, as King, upon his throne; 
Buckingham, Catesby, a Page, and others. 

King Richard. Stand all apart. Cousin of Buck- 
ingham ! 
Buckingham. My gracious sovereign ! 
King Richard. Give me thy hand. Thus high, 
by thy advice 
And thy assistance, is King Richard seated : 
5 But shall we wear these honors for a day ? 
Or shall they last, and we rejoice in them? 
Buckingham. Still live they, and for ever let 

them last ! 
King Richard. Ah, Buckingham, now do I play 
the touch 
To try if thou be current gold indeed : 
10 Young Edward lives ;— think now what I would 
speak. 
Buckingham. Say on, my loving lord. 
King Bichard. Why, Buckingham, I say I 

would be king. 
Buckingham. Why, so you are, my thrice-re- 
nowned liege. 
King Richard. Ha ! am I king? 'Tis so :— but 
Edward lives, 
i c Buckingham. True, noble prince. 

King Richard. O bitter consequence, 

That Edward still should live true, noble prince! 



sc. ii.] KING RICHARD III 121 

Cousin, thou wast not wont to be so dull : 
Shall I be plain ? I wish the bastards dead ; 
And I would have it suddenly perform'd. 
What say'st thou now? speak suddenly ; be brief. 20 
Buckingham. Your grace may do your pleasure. 
King Richard. Tut, tut, thou art all ice, thy 
kindness freezeth : 
Say, have I thy consent that they shall die ? 
Buckingham. Give me some breath, some little 
pause, dear lord, 
Before I positively speak in this : 25 

I will resolve you herein presently. 

[Exit Buckingham. 
Catesby. The king is angry ; see, he bites his 
lip. [Aside. 

King Richard. I will converse with iron-witted 
fools [Descends from his throne. 

And unrespective boys : none are for me 
That look into me with considerate eyes : 30 

High-reaching Buckingham grows circumspect 
Boy! 
Page. My lord ? 

King Richard. Know'st thou not any whom 
corrupting gold 
Would tempt unto a close exploit of death ? 35 

Page. I know a discontented gentleman 
Whose humble means match not his haughty 

mind : 
Gold were as good as twenty orators, 
And will, no doubt, tempt him to anything. 
King Richard. What is his name ? 
Page. His name, my lord, is Tyrrel. 40 

King Richard. I partly know the man : go, call 
him hither, boy. [Exit Page. 

The deep-revolving, witty Buckingham 
No more shall be the neighbor to my counsels : 



122 KING RICHARD III. [act iv. 

Hath he so long held out with me untir'd, 
45 And stops he now for breath ?— well, be it so. 

Enter Stanley. 

How now, Lord Stanley ! what 's the news ? 

Stanley. Know, my loving lord, 
The Marquis Dorset, as I hear, is fled 
To Richmond, in the parts where he abides. 

50 King Richard. Come hither, Catesby : rumor is 
abroad 
That Anne, my wife, is very grievous sick ; 
I will take order for her keeping close. 
Inquire me out some mean-born gentleman, 
Whom I will marry straight to Clarence 7 daughter ; 

55 The boy is foolish, and I fear not him. 

Look, how thou dream' st ! — I say again give out 
That Anne my queen is sick and like to die : 
About it ; for it stands me much upon 
To stop all hopes whose growth may damage me. 

[Exit Catesby. 

60 1 must be married to my brother's daughter, 
Or else my kingdom stands on brittle glass : 
Murder her brothers, and then marry her ! 
Uncertain way of gain ! But I am in 
So far in blood that sin will pluck on sin : 

65 Tear-falling pity dwells not in this eye. 

Re-enter Page, with Tyrrel. 

Is thy name Tyrrel ? 

Tyrrel. James Tyrrel, and your most obedient 

subject. 
King Richard. Art thou, indeed? 
Tyrrel. Prove me, my gracious lord. 

King Richard. Dar'st thou resolve to kill a friend 
of mine? 
70 Tyrrel. Please you, I 'd rather kill two enemies. 



sc. ii.] KING RICHARD III 123 

King Richard. Why, there thou hast it : two 
deep enemies, 
Foes to my rest and my sweet sleep's disturbers 
Are they that I would have thee deal upon : 
Tyrrel, I mean those bastards in the Tower. 

Tyrrel. Let me have open means to come to them, 75 
And soon I '11 rid you from the fear of them. 
King Richard. Thou sing'st sweet music. Hark, 
come hither, Tyrrel : 
Go, by this token : rise, and lend thine ear : 

[ Whispers. 
There is no more but so : say it is done, 
And I will love thee, and prefer thee too. 80 

Tyrrel. 7 Tis done, my gracious lord. 
King Richard. Shall we hear from thee, Tyrrel, 

ere we sleep ? 
Tyrrel. Ye shall, my lord. 

Re-enter Buckingham. 

Buckingham. My lord, I have considered in my 
mind 
The late request that you did sound me in. 85 

King Richard. Well, let that pass. Dorset is 

fled to Richmond. 
Buckingham. I hear that news, my lord. 
King Richard. Stanley, he is your wife's son : — 

well, look to it. 
Buckingham. My lord, I claim the gift, my due 
by promise, 
For which your honor and your faith is pawn'd ; qo 
Th' earldom of Hereford and the movables, 
Which you have promised I shall possess. 

King Richard. Stanley, look to your wife : if she 
convey 
Letters to Richmond, you shall answer it. 
Buckingham. What says your highness to my 

just request? 95 



124 KING RICHARD III. [act rv. 

King Richard. I do remember me, — Henry the 
Sixth 
Did prophesy that Richmond should be king, 
When Richmond was a little peevish boy. 

A king, perhaps, perhaps 

ioo Buckingham. My lord ! 

King Richard. How chance the prophet could 
not at that time 
Have told me, I being by, that I should kill him ? 
Buckingham. My lord, your promise for the earl- 
dom, 

King Richard. Richmond ! When last I was at 
Exeter, 
105 The mayor in courtesy show'd me the castle, 

And call'd it Rouge-mont : at which name I started, 
Because a bard of Ireland told me once 
I should not live long after I saw Richmond. 
Buckingham. My lord ! 

King Richard. * Ay, what 's o'clock? 

n° Buckingham. I am thus bold to put your grace 
in mind 
Of what you promis'd me. 
King Richard. But what 's o'clock? 

Buckingham. Upon the stroke of ten. 
King Richard. Well, let it strike. 

Buckingham. Why let it strike ? 
King Richard. Because that, like a Jack, thou 
keep'st the stroke 
1 1 5 Betwixt thy begging and my meditation. 
I am not in the giving vein to-day. 
Buckingham. Why, then resolve me whe'r you 

will or no. 
King Richard. Thou troublest me ; I am not in 
the vein. 

[Exeunt King Richard a?id train. 
Buckingham. And is it thus ? repays he my deep 
service 



sc in.] KING RICHARD III. 125 

With such contempt ? made I him king for this ? 1 20 

O, let me think on Hastings and be gone 

To Brecknock while my fearful head is on ! [Exit. 

SCENE III. — Another Room in the Palace. 

Enter Tyrrel. 

Tyrrel. The tyrannous and bloody deed is done, 
The most arch deed of piteous massacre 
That ever yet this land was guilty of. 
Dighton and Forrest, whom I did suborn 
To do this ruthless piece of butchery, 5 

Albeit they were flesh' d villains, bloody dogs, 
Melting with tenderness and mild compassion, 
Wept like two children, in their death's sad story. 
Lo, thus, quoth Dighton, lay the gentle babes : 
Thus, thus, quoth Forrest, girdling one another 10 
Within their innocent alabaster arms : 
Their lips were four red roses on a stalk, 
Which, in their summer beauty, kiss'd each other. 
A book of prayers on their pillow lay ; 
Which once, quoth Forrest, almost changed my 

mind ; 1 5 

But, O ! the devil — there the villain stopp'd ; 
When Dighton thus told on : We smothered 
The most replenished sweet work of Nature 
That, from the prime creation, e'er she framed. 
Hence both are gone, with conscience and remorse 20 
They could not speak ; and so I left them both 
To bring this tidings to the bloody king. 
And here he comes. 

Enter King Richard. 

All hail, my sovereign liege ! 
King Richard. Kind Tyrrel, am I happy in thy 
news? 



126 KING RICHARD III [act rv. 

25 Tyrrel. If to have done the thing you gave in 
charge 
Beget your happiness, be happy then, 
For it is done. 
King Richard. But didst thou see them dead ? 
Tyrrel. I did, my lord. 

King Richard. And buried, gentle Tyrrel ? 

Tyrrel. The chaplain of the Tower hath buried 
thern ; 
30 But how or in what place I do not know. 

King Richard. Come to me, Tyrrel, soon at after- 
supper, 
When thou shalt tell the process of their death. 
Meantime but think how I may do thee good, 
And be inheritor of thy desire. 
35 Farewell till then. 

Tyrrel. I humbly take my leave. [TJxit. 

King Richard. The son of Clarence have I pent 
up close ; 
His daughter meanly have I match'd in marriage ; 
The sons of Edward sleep in Abraham's bosom ; 
And Anne my wife hath bid the world good-night. 
4° Now, for I know the Breton Richmond aims 
At young Elizabeth, my brother's daughter, 
And, by that knot, looks proudly on the crown, 
To her go I, a jolly, thriving wooer. 

Enter Ratcliff. 

Ratcliff. My lord! 
45 King Richard. Good news, or bad, that thou 
com'st in so bluntly? 
Ratcliff. Bad news, my lord : Ely is fled to Rich- 
mond; 
And Buckingham, back'd with the hardy Welsh- 
men, 
Is in the field, and still his power increaseth. 



sc. iv.] KING RICHARD III. 127 

King Richard. Ely with Richmond troubles me 
more near 
Than Buckingham and his rash-levied strength. 50 
Come, I have learn' d that fearful commenting 
Is leaden servitor to dull delay ; 
Delay leads impotent and snail-pac'd beggary : 
Then fiery expedition be my wing, 
Jove's Mercury, and herald for a king ! 55 

Go, muster men : my counsel is my shield ; 
We must be brief when traitors brave the field. 

[Exeunt. 

SCENE IV.— Before the Palace. 
Enter Queen Margaret. 

Queen Margaret. So, now prosperity begins to 

mellow, 
And drop into the rotten mouth of death. 
Here in these confines slily have I lurk'd 
To watch the waning of mine enemies. 
A dire induction am I witness to, 5 

And will to France ; hoping the consequence 
Will prove as bitter, black, and tragical. 
Withdraw thee, wretched Margaret : who comes 

here ? [Retires. 

Enter Queen Elizabeth and the Duchess of 
York. 

Queen Elizabeth. Ah, my poor princes ! ah, my 
tender babes ! 
My unblown flowers, new-appearing sweets ! 10 

If yet your gentle souls fly in the air, 
And be not flx'd in doom perpetual, 
Hover about me with your airy wings, 
And hear your mother's lamentation ! 
Queen Margaret. Hover about her ; say that right 

for right 1 5 



128 KING RICHARD III. [act iv. 

Hath dimm'd your infant morn to aged night. 

Duchess. So niany miseries have craz'd my voice 
That my woe-wearied tongue is still and mute. 
Edward Plantagenet, why art thou dead ? 
20 Queen Margaret. Plantagenet doth quit Plan- 
tagenet. 
Edward for Edward pays a dying debt. 

Queen Elizabeth. Wilt thou, O God, fly from 
such gentle lambs, 
And throw them in the entrails of the wolf? 
When didst thou sleep when such a deed was done? 
25 Queen Margaret. When holy Harry died, and 
my sweet son. 
Duchess. Blind sight, dead life, poor mortal- 
living ghost, 
Woe's scene, world's shame, grave's due by life 

usurp' d, 
Brief abstract and record of tedious days, 
Rest thy unrest on England's lawful earth, 

[Sitting down. 
30 Unlawfully made drunk with innocent blood ! 

Queen Elizabeth. O, that thou wouldst as soon 
afford a grave 
As thou canst yield a melancholy seat ! 
Then would I hide my bones, not rest them here. 
O, who hath any cause to mourn but we ? 

[Sitting down by her. 
35 Queen Margaret. If ancient sorrow be most rev- 
erend, 
Give mine the benefit of seniory, 
And let my griefs frown on the upper hand. 
If sorrow can admit society, 

[Sitting down with them* 
Tell o'er your woes again by viewing mine : 
40 1 had an Edward till a Richard kill'd him ; 
I had a Henrv till a Richard kill'd him : 



sc. iv.] KING RICHARD III 129 

Thou hadst an Edward till a Richard kill'd him : 
Thou hadst a Richard till a Richard kill'd him. 

Duchess. I had a Richard too, and thou didst 
kill him ; 
I had a Rutland too, thou holp'st to kill him. 45 

Queen Margaret. Thou hadst a Clarence too, and 
Richard kill'd him. 
From forth the kennel of thy womb hath crept 
A hell-hound that doth hunt us all to death : 
That dog that had his teeth before his eyes 
To worry lambs, and lap their gentle blood ; 50 

That foul defacer of God's handiwork ; 
That excellent-grand tyrant of the earth, 
That reigns in gallfed eyes of weeping souls, 
Thy womb let loose to chase us to our graves. 
O upright, just, and true-disposing God, 55 

How do I thank thee that this carnal cur 
Preys on the issue of his mother's body, 
And makes her pew-fellow with others' moan ! 

Duchess. O, Harry's wife, triumph not in my 
woes ! 
God witness with me, I have wept for thine. 60 

Queen Margaret. Bear with me ; I am hungry 
for revenge, 
And now I cloy me with beholding it. 
Thy Edward he is dead that kill'd my Edward ; 
Thy other Edward dead to quit my Edward ; 
Young York he is but boot, because both they 65 

Match not the high perfection of my loss : 
Thy Clarence he is dead that kill'd my Edward ; 
And the beholders of this tragic play, 
The adulterate Hastings, Rivers, Vaughan, Grey, 
Untimely smother' d in their dusky graves. 70 

Richard yet lives, hell's black intelligencer ; 
Only reserv'd their factor to buy souls, 
And send them thither. But at hand, at hand 



130 KING RICHARD III. [act iv. 

Ensues his piteous and unpitied end : 
75 Earth gapes, hell burns, fiends roar, saints pray- 
To have him suddenly convey' d away. 

Cancel his bond of life, dear God, I pray, 

That I may live to say, The dog is dead ! 

Queen Elizabeth. O, thou didst prophesy the 
time would come 
80 That I should wish for thee to help me curse 

That bottled spider, that foul, bunch-back' d toad ! 
Queen Margaret. I call'd thee then vain flourish 
of my fortune ; 

I call'd thee then poor shadow, painted queen ; 

The presentation of but what I was, 
85 The flattering index of a direful pageant, 

One heav'd a-high to be hurl'd down below : 

A mother only mock'd with two fair babes ; 

A dream of what thou wert, a breath, a bubble : 

A sign of dignity, a garish flag, 
90 To be the aim of every dangerous shot ; 

A queen in jest, only to All the scene. 

Where is thy husband now ? where be thy brothers? 

Where be thy two sons? wherein dost thou joy ? 

Who sues to thee and cries, God save the queen f 
95 Where be the bending peers that flatter'd thee? 

Where be the thronging troops that follow 'd thee? 

Decline all this, and see what now thou art. 

For happy wife, a most distressed widow ; 

For joyful mother, one that wails the name ; 
100 For queen, a very caitiff* crown'd with care ; 

For one being sued to, one that humbly sues ; 

For one that scorn 'd at me, now scorn 'd of me ; 

For one being fear'd of all, now fearing one ; 

For one commanding all, obey'd of none. 
105 Thus hath the course of justice wheel' d about, 

And left thee but a very prey to time ; 

Having no more but thought of what thou wast, 



sc. iv.] KING RICHARD III. 131 

To torture thee the more, being what thou art. 
Thou didst usurp my place, and dost thou not 
Usurp the just proportion of my sorrow ? no 

Now thy proud neck bears half my burden 'd yoke, 
From which even here I slip my wearied head 
And leave the burden of it all on thee. 
Farewell, York's wife, and queen of sad mischance, 
These English woes shall make me smile in France. 1 1 5 
Queen Elizabeth. O thou well skill'd in curses/ 
stay a while, 
And teach me how to curse mine enemies ! 

Queen Margaret. Forbear to sleep the night, and 
fast the day ; 
Compare dead happiness with living woe ; 
Think that thy babes were fairer than they were, 1 20 
And he that slew them fouler than he is ; 
Bettering thy loss makes the bad-causer worse ; 
Revolving this will teach thee how to curse. 
Queen Elizabeth. My words are dull ; O, quicken 

them with thine ! 
Queen Margaret. Thy woes will make them 

sharp, and pierce like mine. [Exit 125 

Duchess. Why should calamity be full of words ? 
Queen Elizabeth. Windy attorneys to their client 
woes, 
Airy succeeders of intestate joys, 
Poor breathing orators of miseries ! 
Let them have scoj>e : though what they do im- 
part 1 30 
Help not at all, yet do they ease the heart. 
Duchess. Tf so, then be not tongue-tied : go with 
me, 
And in the breath of bitter words let 's smother 
My damned son, that thy two sweet sons 
smother'd. [Trumpet ivithin. 
The trumpet sounds— be copious in exclaims. 135 



132 KING RICHARD III [act iv. 

Enter King Richard, and his Train, marching. 

King Richard. Who intercepts me in my expe- 
dition ? 
Duchess. O, she that might have intercepted 
thee 
From all the slaughters, wretch, that thou hast 
done ! 
Queen Elizabeth. Hid'st thou that forehead with 
a golden crown, 
140 Where should be branded, if that right were right, 
The slaughter of the prince that ow'd that crown, 
And the dire death of my two sons and brothers? 
Tell me, thou villain-slave, where are my chil- 
dren ? 
Duchess. Thou toad, thou toad, where is thy 
brother Clarence ? 
145 And little Ned Plantagenet, his son? 

Queen Elizabeth. Where is the gentle Rivers, 

Vaughan, Grey? 
Duchess. Where is kind Hastings ? 
King Richard. A flourish, trumpets ! strike 
alarum, drums ! 
Let not the heavens hear these tell-tale women 
1 50 Rail on the Lord's anointed : strike, I say ! 

[Flourish. Alarums. 
Either be patient, and entreat me fair, 
Or with the clamorous report of war 
Thus will I drown your exclamations. 
Duchess. Art thou my son ? 
155 King Richard. Ay, I thank God, my father, 
and yourself. 
Duchess. Then patiently hear my impatience. 
King Richard. Madam, I have a touch of your 
condition, 
That cannot brook the accent of reproof. 



sc. iv.] KING RICHARD III. 133 

Duchess. O, let me speak. 

King Richard. Do, then ; but I '11 not hear. 

Duchess. I will be mild and gentle in my words. 160 
King Richard. And brief, good mother ; for I 

am in haste. 
Duchess. Art thou so hasty? I have stay'd for 
thee, 
God knows, in anguish, pain, and agony. 
King Richard. And came I not at last to com- 
fort you ? 
Duchess. No, by the holy rood, thou know'st it 

well, 165 

Thou cam'st on earth to make the earth my hell. 
A grievous burden was thy birth to me ; 
Tetchy and wayward was thy infancy ; 
Thy school-days frightful, desperate, wild, and 

furious ; 
Thy prime of manhood daring, bold, and ven- 
turous ; 1 70 
Thy age con firm' d proud, subtle, sly, and bloody, 
More mild, but yet more harmful ; kind in hatred : 
What comfortable hour canst thou name 
That ever grac'd me in thy company ? 
King Bichard. 'Faith, none, but Humphrey 

Hour, that call'd your grace 1S0 

To breakfast once forth of my company. 
If I be so disgracious in your eye, 
Let me inarch on, and not offend you, madam. 
Strike up the drum. 
Duchess. I prithee, hear me speak; 

King Richard. You speak too bitterly. 
Duchess. Hear me a word, 185 

For I shall never speak to thee again. 
King Richard. So. 

Duchess. Either thou wilt die, by God's just 
ordinance, 



134 KING RICHARD III [act iv. 

Ere from this war thou turn a conqueror, 
190 Or I with grief and extreme age shall perish, 
And never more behold thy face again. 
Therefore, take with thee my most heavy curse ; 
Which, in the day of battle, tire thee more 
Than all the complete armor that thou wear'st ! 
105 My prayers on the adverse party fight ; 

And there the little souls of Edward's children 
Whisper the spirits of thine enemies, 
And promise them success and victory. 
Bloody thou art, bloody will be thy end ; 
200 Shame serves thy life and doth thy death attend. 

[Exit. 

Queen Elizabeth. Though far more cause, yet 

much less spirit to curse 

Abides in me ; I say Amen to her. [Going. 

King Richard. Stay, madam, I must speak a 

word with you. 
Queen Elizabeth. I have no more sons of the 
royal blood 
205 For thee to slaughter : for my daughters, Richard, 
They shall be praying nuns, not weeping queens ; 
And therefore level not to hit their lives. 
King Richard. You have a daughter call'd 
Elizabeth, 
Virtuous and fair, royal and gracious. 
210 Queen Elizabeth. And must she die for this? O, 
let her live, 
And I'll corrupt her manners, stain her beauty ; 
Slander myself as false to Edward's bed ; 
Throw over her the veil of infamy : 
So she may live unscarr'd of bleeding slaughter, 
215 I will confess she was not Edward's daughter. 

King Richard. Wrong not her birth, she is of 

royal blood. 
Queen Elizabeth. To save her life I '11 say she is 
not so. 



sc. iv.] KING RICHARD III 135 

King Richard. Her life is safest only in her 

birth. 
Queen Elizabeth. And only in that safety died 

her brothers. 
King Richard. Lo, at their births good stars 

were opposite. 220 

Queen Elizabeth. No, to their lives bad friends 

were contrary. 
King Richard. All unavoided is the doom of 

destiny. 
Queen Elizabeth. True, when avoided grace 
makes destiny : 
My babes were destin'd to a fairer death, 
If grace had blessed thee with a fairer life. 225 

King Richard. You speak as if that I had slain 

my cousins. 
Queen Elizabeth. Cousins, indeed ; and by their 
uncle cozen 'd 
Of comfort, kingdom, kindred, freedom, life. 
Whose hand soever lanc'd their tender hearts, 
Thy head, all indirectly, gave direction : 230 

No doubt the murderous knife was dull and blunt 
Till it was whetted on thy stone-hard heart 
To revel in the entrails of my lambs. 
But that still use of grief makes wild grief tame, 
My tongue should to thy ears not name my boys 235 
Till that my nails were anchor' d in thine eyes ; 
And I, in such a desperate bay of death, 
Like a poor bark, of sails and tackling reft, 
Rush all to pieces on thy rocky bosom. 
King Richard. Madam, so thrive I in my enter- 
prise 240 
And dangerous success of bloody wars 
As I intend more good to you and yours 
Than ever you or yours by me were wrong' d ! 
Queen Elizabeth. What good is cover'd with 
the face of heaven, 



136 KING RICHARD III [act iv. 

245 To be discover' d, that can do me good? 

King Richard. Th' advancement of your chil- 
dren, gentle lady. 
Queen Elizabeth. Up to some scaffold, there to 

lose their heads ? 
King Richard. Unto the dignity and height of 
honor, 
The high imperial type of this earth's glory. 
250 Queen Elizabeth. Flatter my sorrows with re- 
port of it ; 
Tell me what state, what dignity, what honor 
Canst thou demise to any child of mine ? 
King Richard. Even all I have ; ay, and myself 
and all 
Will I withal endow a child of thine ; 
255 So in the Lethe of thy angry soul 

Thou drown the sad remembrance of those wrongs 
Which thou supposest I have done to thee. 

Queen Elizabeth. Be brief, lest that the process 
of thy kindness 
Last longer telling than thy kindness' date. 
260 King Richard. Then know, that from my soul 
I love thy daughter. 
Queen Elizabeth. My daughter's mother thinks 

it with her soul. 
King Richard. What do you think ? 
Queen Elizabeth. That thou dost love my daugh- 
ter from thy soul : 
So from thy soul's love didst thou love her 
brothers ; 
265 And from my heart's love I do thank thee for it. 
King Richard. Be not so hasty to confound my 
meaning ; 
I mean that with my soul I love thy daughter, 
. And mean to make her queen of England. 

Queen Elizabeth. Well then, who dost thou 
mean shall be her king ? 



sc. iv.] KING RICHARD III 137 

King Richard. Even he that makes her queen : 

who else should be ? 270 

Queen Elizabeth. What, thou ? 

King Richard. I, even I : what think you of it, 
madam ? 

Queen Elizabeth. How canst thou woo her? 

King Richard. That I would learn of you, 

As being best acquainted with her humor. 

Queen Elizabeth. And wilt thou learn of me ? 

King Richard. Madam, with all my heart. 275 

Queen Elizabeth. Send to her, by the man that 
slew her brothers, 
A pair of bleeding hearts ; thereon engrave 
Edward and York ; then, haply, will she weep : 
Therefore present to her — as sometime Margaret 
Did to thy father, steep' d in Rutland's blood, — 280 
A handkerchief ; which, say to her, did drain 
The purple sap from her sweet brothers' bodies, 
And bid her dry her weeping eyes therewith. 
If this inducement move here not to love, 
Send her a letter of thy noble deeds ; 285 

Tell her thou mad'st away her uncle Clarence, 
Her uncle Rivers ; ay, and for her sake 
Mad'st quick conveyance with her good aunt- 
Anne. 

King Richard. You mock me, madam ; this is 
not the way 
To win your daughter. 

Queen Elizabeth. There 's no other way ; 290 

Unless thou couldst put on some other shape, 
And not be Richard that hath done all this. 

King Richard. Say that I did all this for love of 
her. 

Queen Elizabeth. Nay, then indeed she cannot 
choose but hate thee, 
Having bought love with such a bloody spoil. 295 



138 KING RICHARD III [act iv. 

King Richard. Look, what is done cannot be 
now amended ; 
Men shall deal unadvisedly sometimes, 
Which after-hours give leisure to repent. 
If I did take the kingdom from your sons, 
300 To make amends I '11 give it to your daughter ; 

A grandam's name is little less in love 
Than is the doting title of a mother ; 
They are as children but one step below, 
Even of your mettle, of your very blood. 

* * * * * 

305 Your children were vexation to your youth, 
But mine shall be a comfort to your age. 
The loss you have is but a son being king, 
And by that loss your daughter is made queen. 
I cannot make you what amends I would, 

310 Therefore accept such kindness as I can. 
Dorset, your son, that with a fearful soul 
Leads discontented steps in foreign soil, 
This fair alliance quickly shall call home 
To high promotions and great dignity : 

315 The king, that calls your beauteous daughter wife, 
Familiarly shall call thy Dorset brother ; 
Again shall you be mother to a king, 
And all the ruins of distressful times 
Repair' d with double riches of content. 

320 What ! we have many goodly days to see : 
The liquid drops of tears that you have shed 
Shall come again, transform' d to orient pearl : 
Advantaging their loan with interest 
Of ten-times double gain of happiness. 

325 Go then, my mother, to thy daughter go ; 

Make bold her bashful years with your experience ; 
Prepare her ears to hear a wooer's tale ; 
Put in her tender heart the aspiring flame 



sc. iv.J KING RICHARD III 139 

Of golden sovereignty ; acquaint the princess 
With the sweet, silent hours of marriage joys : 330 
And, when this arm of mine hath chastised 
The petty rebel, dull-brain' d Buckingham, 
Bound with triumphant garlands will I come, 
And lead thy daughter to a conqueror's ' throne ; ' 
To whom I will retail my conquest won, 335 

And she shall be sole victress, Caesar's Csesar. 
Queen Elizabeth. What were I best to say? her 
father's brother 
Would be her lord ? Or shall I say her uncle ? 
Or he that slew her brothers and her uncles ? 
Under what title shall I woo for thee 340 

That God, the law, my honor, and her love 
Can make seem pleasing to her tender years ? 
King Richard. Infer fair England's peace by this 

alliance. 
Queen Elizabeth. Which she shall purchase with 

still-lasting war. 
King Richard. Tell her the king, that may com- 
mand, entreats. 345 
Queen Elizabeth. That at her hands which the 

king's King forbids. 
King Richard. Say she shall be a high and 

mighty queen. 
Queen Elizabeth. To wail the title, as her mother 

doth. 
King Richard. Say I will love her everlastingly. 
Queen Elizabeth. But how long shall that title 

ever last? 350 

King Richard. Sweetly in force unto her fair 

life's end. 
Queen Elizabeth. But how long fairly shall her 

sweet life last ? 
King Richard. As long as heaven and nature 
lengthens it. 



140 KING RICHARD III. [act iv. 

Queen Elizabeth. As long as hell and Richard 
likes of it. 
355 King Richard. Say I, her sovereign, am her 
subject love. 
Queen Elizabeth. But she, your subject, loathes 

such sov'reignty. 
King Richard. Be eloquent in my behalf to her. 
Queen Elizabeth. An honest tale speeds best, 

being plainly told. 
King Richard. Then in plain terms tell her my . 
loving tale. 
360 Queen Elizabeth. Plain and not honest is too 
harsh a style. 
King Richard. Your reasons are too shallow and 

too quick. 
Queen Elizabeth. O no, my reasons are too deep 
and dead ; 
Too deep and dead, poor infants, in their graves ! 
King Richard. Harp not on that string, madam ; 
that is past. 
365 Queen Elizabeth. Harp on it still shall I till 
heartstrings break. 
King Richard. Now, by my George, my garter, 

and my crown, — 
Queen Elizabeth. Profan'd, dishonored, and the 

third usurp'd. 
King Richard. I swear — [no oath. 

Queen Elizabeth. By nothing ; for this is 

Thy George, profan'd, hath lost his holy honor ; 
370 Thy garter, blemish'd, pawned his knightly 
virtue ; 
Thy crown, usurp'd, disgrae'd his kingly glory : 
If something thou wouldst swear to be believ'd, 
Swear then by something that thou hast not 
wrong' d. 
King Richard. Now, by the world — 
Queen Elizabeth. 'Tis full of thy foul wrongs. 



sc. iv.] KING RICHARD III. 141 

King Richard. My father's death — 

Queen Elizabeth. Thy life hath that dishonored. 375 

King Richard. Then, by myself — 

Queen Elizabeth. Thyself thyself misus'st 

King Richard. Why, then, by Heaven — 

Queen Elizabeth. Heaven's wrong is most of all. 
If thou had'st fear'd to break an oath by him, 
The unity the king thy brother made 
Had not been broken, nor my brother slain. 380 

If thou hadst fear'd to break an oath by him, 
The imperial metal, circling now thy head, 
Had grae'd the tender temples of my child ; 
And both the princes had been breathing here, 
Which now, too tender bedfellows for dust, 385 

Thy broken faith had made a prey for worms. 
What canst thou swear by now ? 

King Richard. The time to come. 

Queen Elizabeth. That thou hast wronged in the 
time o'erpast ; 
For I myself have many tears to wash 
Hereafter time, for time past wrong' d by thee. 390 
The children live whose fathers thou hast slaugh- 
ter 1 d, 
Ungovern'd youth, to wail it in their age ; 
The parents live whose children thou hast butch- 

er'd, 
Old wither' d plants, to wail it with their age. 
Swear not by time to come ; for that thou hast 395 
Misus'd ere us'd, by times misus'd o'er-past. 

King Richard. As I intend to prosper and re- 
pent 
So thrive I in my dangerous attempt 
Of hostile arms ! myself myself confound ! 
Heaven and fortune bar me happy hours ! 4°° 

Day, yield me not thy light ; nor, night, thy rest ! 
Be opposite all planets of good-luck 



142 KING RICHARD III. [act iv. 

To my proceeding, if, with pure heart's love, 
Immaculate devotion, holy thoughts, 
40$ I tender not thy beauteous princely daughter ! 
In her consists my happiness and thine ; 
Without her follows to myself, and thee, 
Herself, the land, and many a Christian soul, 
Death, desolation, ruin, and decay : 
4 IQ It cannot be avoided but by this ; 
It will not be avoided but by this. 
Therefore, dear mother (I must call you so), 
Be the attorney of my love to her : 
Plead what I will be, not what I have been ; 
415 Not my deserts, but what I will deserve : 
Urge the necessity and state of times, 
And be not peevish-fond in great designs. 

Queen Elizabeth. Shall I be tempted of the devil 

thus? 
King Richard. Ay, if the devil tempt thee to do 
good. 
420 Queen Elizabeth. Shall I forget myself to be my- 
self? 
King Richard. Ay, if yourself 's remembrance 

wrong yourself. 
Queen Elizabeth. Yet, thou didst kill my chil- 
dren. 
King Richard. But in your daughter's womb I 

bury them-. 
Queen Elizabeth. Shall I go win my daughter to 
thy will ? 
425 King Richard. And be a happy mother by the 
deed. 
Queen Elizabeth. I go. Write to me very shortly, 
And you shall understand from me her mind. 
King Richard. Bear her my true love's kiss ; 
and so farewell. 
[Kissi))g Iter. Exit Queen Elizabeth. 



sc. IV] KING RICHARD III. 143 

Relenting fool, and shallow, changing woman ! 

Enter Ratcliff ; Catesby following. 

How now ! what news ? 430 

Ratcliff. Most mighty sovereign, on the western 
coast 
Rideth a puissant navy ; to the shore 
Throng many doubtful, hollow-hearted friends, 
Unarm' d, and unresolv'd to beat them back : 
'Tis thought that Richmond is their admiral ; 435 

And there they hull, expecting but the aid 
Of Buckingham to welcome them ashore. 
King Richard. Some light-foot friend post to the 
Duke of Norfolk : 
Ratcliff, thyself, or Catesby ; where is he ? 
Catesby. Here, my good lord. 

King Richard. Catesby, fly to the Duke. 440 

Catesby. I will, my lord, with all convenient 

haste. 
King Richard. Ratcliff, come hither : post to 
Salisbury ; 
When thou com'st thither — 

[To Catesby.] Dull, unmindful villain, 
Why stay'st thou here, and go'st not to the duke? 
Catesby. First, mighty liege, tell me your high- 
ness' pleasure, 445 
What from your grace I shall deliver to him. 
King Richard. O, true, good Catesby ; bid him 
levy straight 
The greatest strength and power he can make, 
And meet me suddenly at Salisbury. 

Catesby. I go. \_Exit. 450 

Ratcliff. What, may it please you, shall I do at 

Salisbury? 
King Richard. Why, what wouldst thou do 
there before I go ? 



144 KING RICHARD III. [act iv. 

Ratcliff. Your highness told me I should post 
before. 

Enter Stanley. 

King Richard. My mind is chang'd. — Stanley, 
what news with you ? 
455 Stanley. None good, my liege, to please you with 
the hearing ; 
Nor none so bad but well may be reported. 

King Richard. Heyday, a riddle ! neither good 
nor bad ! 
What need'st thou run so many miles about 
When thou mayst tell thy tale a nearer way ? 
460 Once more, what news ? 

Stanley. Richmond is on the seas. 

King Richard. There let him sink, and be the 
seas on him ! 
White-liver' d runagate, what doth he there? 
Stanley. I know not, mighty sovereign, but by 

guess. 
King Richard. Well, as you guess ? 
465 Stanley. Stirr'd up by Dorset, Buckingham, and 
Ely, 
He makes for England, here to claim the crown. 
King Richard. Is the chair empty ? Is the sword 
unsway'd? 
Is the king dead ? the empire unpossess'd? 
What heir of York is there alive but we ? 
470 And who is England's king but great York's heir ? 
Then, tell me, what makes he upon the sea? 
Stanley. Unless for that, my liege, I cannot guess. 
King Richard. Unless for that he conies to be 
your liege, 
You cannot guess wherefore the Welshman conies. 
475 Thou wilt revolt and fly to him I fear. 

Stanley. No, mighty liege, therefore mistrust me 
not. 



sc. iv.] KING RICHARD III 145 

King Richard. Where is thy power then to beat 
him back ? 
Where be thy tenants and thy followers ? 
Are they not now upon the western shore, 
Safe-conducting the rebels from their ships ? 480 

Stanley. No, my good lord, my friends are in the 

north. 
King Richard. Cold friends to me : what do 
they in the north 
When they should serve their sovereign in the 
west? 
Stanley. They have not been commanded, mighty 
king: 
Pleaseth your majesty to give me leave, 485 

I '11 muster up my friends, and meet your grace, 
Where and what time your majesty shall please. 
King Richard. Ay, ay, thou wouldst be gone to 
join with Richmond : 
But I '11 not trust you, sir. 

Stanley. Most mighty sovereign, 

You have no cause to hold my friendship doubtful; 490 
I never was, nor never will be, false. 
King Richard. Go then, and muster men. But 
leave behind 
Your son, George Stanley ; look your heart be firm, 
Or else his head's assurance is but frail. 
Stanley. So deal with him as I prove true to you. 495 

{Exit. 

Enter a Messenger. 

Messenger. My gracious sovereign, now in Devon- 
shire, 
As I by friends am well advertised, 
Sir Edward Courtney, and the haughty prelate, 
Bishop of Exeter, his brother there, 
With many more confed' rates, are in arms. 500 



146 KING RICHARD III. [act iv. 

Enter a second Messenger. 

Second Messenger. In Kent, my liege, the Guil- 
fords are in arms ; 
And every hour more competitors 
Flock to the rebels, and their power grows strong. 

Enter a third Messenger. 

Third Messenger. My lord, the army of great 
Buckingham— 
505 King Richard. Out on ye, owls ! nothing but 
songs of death ? [He strikes him. 

There, take thou that, till thou bring better news, 
Third Messenger. The news I have to tell your 
majesty 
Is, that, by sudden floods and fall of waters, 
Buckingham's army is dispers'd and scatter'd ; 
510 And he himself wander'd away 'alone, 
No man knows whither. 

King Richard. I cry thee mercy : 

There is rny purse to cure that blow of thine. 
Hath any well advised friend proclaim' d 
Reward to hirn that brings the traitor in ? 
5 1 5 Third Messenger. Such proclamation hath been 
made, my liege. 

Enter a fourth Messenger. 

Fourth Messenger. Sir Thomas Lovel and Lord 
Marquis Dorset, ( 

'Tis said, my liege, in Yorkshire are in arms. 
But this good comfort bring I to your grace, 
The Breton navy is dispers'd by tempest : 
520 Richmond, in Dorsetshire, sent out a boat 
Unto the shore to ask those on the banks 
If they were his assistants, yea or no ; 
Who answer' d him they came from Buckingham 



sc. v.] KING RICHARD III. 147 

Upon his party : he, mistrusting them, 
Hois'd sail, and made his course again for Bretagne. 525 
King Richard. March on, march on, since we 
are up in arms ; 
If not to fight with foreign enemies, 
Yet to beat down these rebels here at home. 

Enter Catesby. 

Catesby. My liege, the Duke of Buckingham is 
ta'en ; 
That is the best news : that the Earl of Richmond 530 
Is with a mighty power landed at Milford 
Is colder news ; but yet they must be told. 
King Richard. Away towards Salisbury ! while 
we reason here, 
A royal battle might be won and lost : 
Some one take orcler Buckingham be brought 535 

To Salisbury ; the rest march on with me. 

[Flourish. Exeunt. 

SCENE V. — A Room in Lord Stanley's House. 

Enter Stanley and Sir Christopher Urswick. 

Stanley. Sir Christopher, tell Richmond this 
from me : 
That in the sty of the most deadly boar 
My son George Stanley is frank' d up in hold : 
If I revolt, off goes young George's head ; 
The fear of that holds off my present aid. 5 

So, get thee gone ; commend me to thy lord. 
But, tell me, where is princely Richmond now ? 
Christopher. At Pembroke, or at Ha'rford-west, in 

Wales. 
Stanley. What men of name resort to him ? 
Christopher. Sir Walter Herbert, a renowned 

soldier ; 10 



148 KING RICHARD III [act v. 

Sir Gilbert Talbot, Sir William Stanley ; 

Oxford, redoubted Pembroke, Sir James Blunt, 

And Rice ap Thomas, with a valiant crew ; 

And many other of great name and worth : 
1 5 And towards London do they bend their power, 

If by the way they be not fought withal. 
Stanley. Return unto thy lord ; commend me to 
him : 

Tell him the queen hath heartily consented 

He shall espouse Elizabeth her daughter. 
20 These letters will resolve him of my mind. 

Farewell. 



ACT V. 

SCENE 1.— Salisbury. An open place. 

Enter the Sheriff and Guard, with Buckingham, 
led to execution. 
Buckingham. Will not King Richard let me 

speak with him ? 
Sheriff. No, my good lord ; therefore be patient. 
Buckingham. Hastings, and Edward's children, 
Grey, and Rivers, 
Holy King Henry, and thy fair son Edward, 
5 Vaughan, and all that have miscarried 
By underhand, corrupted, foul injustice, — 
If that your moody, discontented souls 
Do through the clouds behold this present hour, 
Even for revenge mock my destruction ! 
10 This is All-Souls' day, fellows, is it not? 
Sheriff. It is, my lord. 

Buckingham. Why, then All-Souls' day is my 
body's doomsday. 



sc. ii.] KING RICHARD III. 149 

This is the day which, in King Edward's time, 

I wish'd might fall on me, when I was found 

False to his children or his wife's allies : 1 5 

This is the day wherein I wish'd to fall 

By the false faith of him I trusted most : 

This, this All-Souls' day to my fearful soul 

Is the determin'd respite of my wrongs. 

That high All-seer which I dallied with 20 

Hath turn'd my feigned prayer on my head, 

And given in earnest what I begg'd in jest. 

Thus doth he force the swords of wicked men 

To turn their own points on their masters' bosoms: 

Thus Margaret's curse falls heavy on my neck, 25 

When he, quoth she, shall split thy heart with sor- 

roiv, 
Remember Margaret ivas a prophetess. 
Come, sirs, convey me to the block of shame ; 
Wrong hath but wrong, and blame the due of 

blame. [Exeunt. 

SCENE II. — Plain near Tamworth. 

Enter, with drum and colors, Richmond, Oxford* 
Sir James Blunt, Sir Walter Herbert, and 
others, with Forces marching. 

Richmond. Fellows in arms, and my most loving 
friends, 
Bruis'd underneath the yoke of tyranny, 
Thus far into the bowels of the land 
Have we march' d on without impediment ; 
And here receive we from our father Stanley 5 

Lines of fair comfort and encouragement. 
The wretched, bloody, and usurping boar, 
That spoil' d your summer fields and fruitful vines, 
Swills your warm blood like wash, and makes his 
trough 



150 KIXG RICHARD HI. [act v. 

ioln your embowell'd bosom — this foul swine 
Lie's now even in the center of this isle. 
Near to the town of Leicester, as we learn : 
From Tamworth thither is but one day's march. 
In God's name, eheerly on, courageous friends, 
1 5 To reap the harvest of perpetual p 
By this one bloody trial of sharp war. 

Oxford. Every 'man's conscience is a thousand 
swords 
To fight against the bloody homicide. 

Herbert. I doubt not but his friends will turn 
to us. 
20 Blunt. He hath no friends but what are friends 
f>r fear : 
Which in his dearest need will fly from him. 
Richmond. All for our vantage. Then, in God's 
name, march : 
True hope is swift, ami rlies with swallow's wings ; 
Kings it makes gods, and meaner creatures kings. 

[Kj- 

SCENE m.— Bosworih Field. 

Enter King Richard '//"7 Fores; //^ Duke of 
Norfolk, Earl of Surrey, and others. 

King Richard. Here pitch our tents, even here 

in Bosworth Field. 
My Lord of Surrey, why look you so sad '? 

Surrey. My heart is ten times lighter than my 

looks. 
King Richard. My Lord of Norfolk— 
Norfolk. Here, most gracious liege. 

5 King Fir-hard. Norfolk, we must have knock- : 

ha ! must we not ? 
Norfolk. We mibt both give and take, my loving 

lord. 



sc. m.] KING RICHARD UL 151 

King Richard. Up with my teut ! here will I lie 
to-night ; 
[Soldiers begin to set up the King's tent. 

But where to-morrow? Well, all's one for that. 
Who hath descri'd the number of the foe ? 

Norfolk. Six or seven thousand is their utmost 

power. I0 

King Richard. Why, our battalia trebles that 
account : 
Besides, the king's name is a tower of strength, 
Which they upon the adverse faction want. 
Up with tlie tent there ! Valiant gentlemen, 
Let us survey the vantage of the ground ; 15 

Call for some men of sound direction : 
Let 's lack no discipline, make no delay ; 
For, lords, to-morrow is a busy day. [JBzt wU m 

Enter, on the other side of the field, Richmond, 

Sir William Brandon, Oxford, and other 
Lords. Some of tin soldiers pitch Richmond's 
tent. 

Richmond. The weary sun hath made a golden 
set, 
And, by the bright track of his fiery car, 20 

Gives token of a goodly day to-morrow. 
Sir William Brandon, you shall bear my standard. 
Give me some ink and paper in my tent : 
I'll draw the form and model of our battle, 
Limit each leader to his several charge, - 5 

And part in just proportion our small strength. 
My Lord of Oxford, you, Sir William Brandon, 
And you, Sir Walter Herbert, stay with me. 
The Earl of Pembroke keeps his regiment ; 
Good Captain Blunt, bear my good-night to him, 30 
And by the second hour in the morning 
Desire the earl to see me in my tent : 



152 KING RICHARD III. [act v. 

Yet 'one thing more, good captain, do for me ; 
Where is Lord Stanley quarter 'd, do you know ? 
35 Blunt. Unless I have mistaken his colors much, 
Which well I am assur'd I have not done, 
His regiment lies half a mile at least 
South from the mighty power of the king. 
Richmond. If without peril it be possible, 
40 Sweet Blunt, make some good means to speak with 
him, 
And give him from me this most needful note. 

Blunt. Upon my life, my lord, I '11 undertake it ; 
And so, God give you quiet rest to-night ! 
Richmond. Good-night, good Captain Blunt. 
Come, gentlemen, 
45 Let us consult upon to-morrow's business ; 
In to our tent ; the air is raw and cold. 

[ They withdraw into the tent. 

Enter, to his tent, King Richard, Norfolk, 
Ratcxiff, and Catesby. 

King Richard. What is 't o'clock? 
Catesby. It 's supper time, my lord ; 

It's nine o'clock. 

King Richard. I will not sup to-night. 

Give me some ink and paper. 
50 What, is my beaver easier than it was ? 
And all my armor laid into my tent ? 

Catesby. It is, my liege ; and all things are in 

readiness. 
King Richard. Good Norfolk, hie thee to thy 
charge ; 
Use careful watch, choose trusty sentinels. 
55 Norfolk. I go, my lord. 

King Richard. Stir with the lark to-morrow, 

gentle Norfolk. 
Norfolk. I warrant you, my lord. [Exit. 



sc. in.] KING RICHARD III. 153 

King Richard. Ratcliff ! 

Ratcliff. My lord ! 

King Richard. Send out a pursuivant-at-arms. 60 
To Stanley's reg'ment ; bid him bring his power 
Before sunrising, lest his son George fall 
Into the blind cave of eternal night. 
Fill me a bowl of wine. Give me a watch. 
Saddle white Surrey for the field to-morrow. 65 

Look that my staves be sound, and not too heavy. 
Ratcliff! 

Ratcliff. My lord ! 

King Richard. Saw'st thou the melancholy Lord 
Northumberland ? 

Ratcliff. Thomas the Earl of Surrey and himself, 70 
Much about cock-shut time, from troop to troop 
Went through the army cheering up the soldiers. 

King Richard. So, I am satisfied. Give me a 
bowl of wine : 
I have not that alacrity of spirit, 

Nor cheer of mind, that I was wont to have. 75 

Set it down. Is ink and paper ready ? 

Ratcliff. It is, my lord. 

King Richard. Bid my guard watch ; leave me. 
Ratcliff, about the mid of night come to my tent, 
And help to arm rne. Leave me, I say. 

[King Richard retires into his tent. Exeunt 
Ratcliff and Catesby. 

Richmond's tent opens, and discovers him and his 
Officers, etc. 
Enter Stanley. 
Stanley. Fortune and victory sit on thy helm ! 80 
Richmond. All comfort that the dark night can 
afford 
Be to thy person, noble father-in-law ! 
Tell me/ how fares our loving mother ? 



154 KING RICHARD III [act v. 

Stanley. I, by attorney, bless thee from thy 
mother, 
85 Who prays continually for Richmond's good : 
So much for that. The silent hours steal on, 
And flaky darkness breaks within the east. 
In brief, for so the season bids us be, 
Prepare thy battle early in the morning, 

90 And put thy fortune to the arbitrement 
Of bloody strokes and mortal-staring Avar. 
I, as I may — that which I would I cannot, — 
With best advantage will deceive the time, 
And aid thee in this doubtful shock of arms : 
95 But on thy side I may not be too forward, 
Lest, being seen, thy brother, tender George, 
Be executed in his father's sight. 
Farewell : the leisure and the fearful time 
Cuts off the ceremonious vows of love 

100 And ample interchange of sweet discourse, 

Which so long sunder' d friends should dwell upon ; 
God give us leisure for these rites of love ! 
Once more, adieu : — be valiant, and speed well ! 
Richmond. Good lords, conduct him to his regi- 
ment : 

105 I'll strive, with troubled thoughts, to take a nap ; 
Lest leaden slumber peise me down to-morrow, 
When I should mount with wings of victory : 
Once more, good-night, kind lords and gentlemen. 
[Exeunt officers, etc., with Stanley. 
O Thou, whose captain I account myself, 

1 IO Look on my forces with a gracious eye ; 

Put in their hands thy bruising irons of wrath, 
That they may crush down with a heavy fall 
The usurping helmets of our adversaries ! 
Make us thy ministers of chastisement, 

1 1 5 That we may praise thee in thy victory ! 
To thee I do commend my watchful soul, 



sc. in.] KING RICHARD III. 155 

Ere I let fall the windows of mine eyes : 
Sleeping and waking, O, defend me still ! {.Sleeps. 

The Ghost of Prince Edward, son to Henry 
the Sixth, rises between the two tents. 

Ghost. [ To King Richard. ] Let me sit heavy on 
thy soul to-morrow ! 
Think how thou stabb'dst me in my prime of youth 1 20 
At Tewksbury : despair, therefore, and die ! 

[To Richmond.'] Be cheerful, Richmond ; for the 
wronged souls 
Of butcher' d princes fight in thy behalf: 
King Henry's issue, Richmond, comforts thee. 

The Ghost of King Henry the Sixth rises. 

Ghost. [To King Richard.] When I was mortal, 

my anointed body 125 

By thee was punched full of deadly holes : 
Think on the Tower and me : despair, and die ! 
Harry the Sixth bids thee despair, and die ! 

[ To Richmond. Virtuous and holy, be thou con- 
queror ! 
Harry, that prophesied thou shouldst be king, 1 30 

Doth comfort thee in thy sleep : live, and flourish ! 

The Ghost of Clarence rises. 

Ghost. [To King Richard.] Let me sit heavy on 
thy soul to-morrow ! 
I, that was wash'd to death with fulsome wine, 
Poor Clarence, by thy guile betray'd to death ! 
To-morrow in the battle think on me, 135 

And fall thy edgeless sword : despair, and die !, 

[To Richmond.] Thou offspring of the house of 
Lancaster, 
The wronged heirs of York do pray for thee ; 
Good angels guard thy battle ! live, and flourish ! 



156 KING RICHARD III. [act v. 

The Ghosts of Rivers, Grey, and Vaughan rise. 

140 Ghost of Rivers. [To King Richard.] Let me sit 
heavy on thy soul to-morrow 1 
Rivers, that died at Pomfret ! despair, and die ! 
Ghost of Grey. [To King Richard.'] Think upon 

Grey, and let thy soul despair ! 
Ghost of Vaughan. [To King Richard.'] Think 
upon Vaughan, and, with guilty fear, 
Let fall thy lance : despair, and die ! 
H5 All. [To Richmond.] Awake ! and think our 
wrongs in Richard's bosom 
Will conquer him ! awake, and win the day ! 

The Ghost of Hastings rises. 

Ghost. [To King Richard.] Bloody and guilty, 
guiltily awake, 
And in a bloody battle end thy days ? 
Think on Lord* Hastings ; and despair, and die ! 
150 [To Richmond.] Quiet, untroubled soul, awake, 
awake ! 
Arm, fight, and conquer, for fair England's sake ! 

The Ghosts of the two young Princes rise. 
Ghosts. [To King Richard.] Dream on thy 
cousins smother' d in the Tower : 
Let us be laid within thy bosom, Richard, 
And weigh thee down to ruin, shame, and death ! 
155 Thy nephews' souls bid thee despair and die ! 

[To Richmond.] Sleep, Richmond, sleep in peace, 
and wake in joy ; 
Good angels guard thee from the boar's annoy ! 
Live, and beget a happy race of kings ! 
Edward's unhappy sons do bid thee flourish. 

The Ghost of Queen Anne rises. 
160 Ghost. [To King Richard.] Richard, thy wife,* 
that wretched Anne thy wife, 



sc. in.] KING RICHARD III. 157 

That never slept a quiet hour with thee, ' 
Now fills thy sleep with perturbations : 
To-morrow in the battle think on me, 
And fall thy edgeless sword : despair, and die ! 
[To Richmond.] Thou, quiet soul, sleep thou a 

quiet sleep ; 165 

Dream of success and happy victory ! 
Thy adversary's wife doth pray for thee. 

The Ghost of Buckingham rises. 

Ghost. [To King Richard.'] The first was I that 
help'd thee to the crown : 
The last was I that felt thy tyranny : 
O, in the battle think on Buckingham, 170 

And die in terror of thy guiltiness ! 
Dream on, dream on of bloody deeds and death ! 
Fainting, despair ; despairing, yield thy breath ! 

[To Richmond.] I died for hope, ere I could lend 
thee aid : 
But cheer thy heart, and be thou not dismay' d : 175 
God and good angels fight on Richmond's side ; 
And Richard falls in height of all his pride. 

[The Ghosts vanish. King Richard starts out of 
his dream. 

King Richard. Give me another horse ; bind up 
my wounds. 
Have mercy, Jesu ! - Soft ! I did but dream. 
O coward conscience, how dost thou afflict me ! 180 
The lights burn blue. It is now dead midnight. 
Cold, fearful drops stand on my trembling flesh. . 
What do I fear? myself? there 's none else by : 
Richard loves Richard ; that is, I am I. 
Is there a murderer here ? No ; yes, I am : 
Then fly. What, from myself ?' Great reason why: 185 
Lest I revenge. What, myself upon myself? 



158 KING RICHARD III. [act v. 

Alack, I love myself. Wherefore ? for any good 
That I myself have done unto myself? 
O, no ! alas, I rather hate myself, 

190 For hateful deeds committed by myself? 
I am a villain : yet I lie, I am not. 
Fool, of thyself speak well : fool, do not flatter. 
My con-science hath a thousand several tongues, 
And every tongue brings in a several tale, 

!^5 And every tale condems me for a villain. 
Perjury, perjury, in the high'st degree, 
Murder, stern murder, in the dir'st degree, 
All several sins, all us'd in each degree, 
Throng to the bar, crying all, Guilty ! guilty ! 

200 1 shall despair. There is no creature loves me : 
And, if I die, no soul shall pity me : 
Nay, wherefore should they, since that I myself 
Find in myself no pity to myself? 
Methought the souls of all that I had murder' d 

205 Came to my tent ; and every one did threat 

To-morrow's vengeance on the head of Richard. 

Enter Ratcliff. 

Ratcliff. My lord! 
King Richard. Who 's there? 

Batcliff. RatclifT, my lord ; 'tis I. The early 
village-cock 
Hath twice done salutation to the morn ; 
210 Your friends are up, and buckle on their armor. 

King Richard. O Ratcliff, I have dream 'd a fear- 
ful dream ! 
What thinkest thou, will our friends prove all true? 
Ratcliff. No doubt, my lord. 

King Richard. O Ratcliff, I fear, I fear— 

Ratcliff. Nay, good my lord, be not afraid of 
shadows. 
215 King Richard. By the apostle Paul, shadows to- 
night 



sc. in.] KING RICHARD III. 159 

Have struck more terror to the soul of Richard 

Than can the substance of ten thousand soldiers, 

Armed in proof, and led by shallow Richmond. 

It is not yet near day. Come, go with me ; 

Under our tents I '11 play the eaves-drop per 220 

To hear if any mean to shrink from me. 

\_Exeunt King Richard and Ratcliff. 

Enter Oxford and others. 

Lords. Good-morrow, Richmond ! 

Richmond. Cry mercy, lords and watchful 
gentlemen, 
That you have ta'en a tardy sluggard here. 

Lords. How have you slept, my lord? 225 

Richmond. The sweetest sleep, the fairest-boding 
dreams 
That ever enter'd in a drowsy head 
Have I since your departure had, my lords. 
Methought their souls whose bodies Richard mur- 
der' d, 
Came to my tent, and cried on victory : 230 

I promise you my heart is very jocund 
In the remembrance of so fair a dream. 
How far into the morning is it, lords? 

Lords. Upon the stroke of four. 

Richmond. Why, then 'tis time to arm and give 

direction. 235 

[He advances to the troops. 
More than I have said, loving countrymen, 
The leisure and enforcement of the time 
Forbids to dwell upon ; yet remember this : 
God and our good cause fight upon our side ; 240 

The prayers of holy saints and wronged souls, 
Like high-rear' d bulwarks, stand before our faces ; 
Richard except, those whom we fight against 
Had rather have us win than him they follow, 



160 KING RICHARD III. [act v. 

For what is he they follow ? truly, gentlemen, 
245 A bloody tyrant and a homicide : 

One rais'd in blood, and one in blood establish'*! ; 
One that made means to come by what he hath, 
And slaughter' d those that were the means to help 

him ; 
A base, foul stone, made precious by the foil 
250 Of England's chair, where he is falsely set ; 
One that hath ever been God's enemy : 
Then, if you fight against God's enemy, 
God will, in justice, ward you as his soldiers ; 
If you do sweat to put a tyrant down, 
255 You sleep in peace, the tyrant being slain ; 
If you do fight against your country's foes, 
Your country's fat shall pay your pains the hire ; 
If you do fight in safeguard of your wives, 
Your wives shall welcome home the conquerors ; 
260 If you do free your children from the sword, 
Your children's children quit it in your age. 
Then in the name of God and all these rights, 
Advance your standards, draw your willing swords. 
For me, the ransom of my bold attempt 
265 Shall be this cold corpse on the earth's cold face ; 
But, if I thrive, the gain of my attempt 
The least of you shall share his part thereof. 
Sound, drums and trumpets, bold and cheerfully; 
God and Saint George ! Richmond and victory ! 

[Exeunt. 

Re-enter King Richard, Ratcliff, Attendants, 

and Forces. 

270 King Richard. What said Northumberland as 

touching Richmond ? 

Ratcliff. That he was never trained up in arms. 

King Richard. He said the truth : and what 

said Surrey then ? 
Ratcliff. He smil'd and said, The better for our 
purpose. 



sc. in.] KING RICHARD III. 161 

King Richard. He was V the right ; and so, in- 
deed, it is. [Clock strikes. 
Tell the clock there. Give me a calendar. — 275 
Who saw the sun to-day ? 

Ratcliff. Not I, my lord. 

King Richard. Then he disdains to shine ; for, 
by the book 
He should have brav'd the east an hour ago : 
A black day will it be to somebody. 
Ratcliff! 

Ratcliff. My lord! 

King Richard. The sun will not be seen to-day ; 2 8o 
The sky doth frown and lour upon our army. 
I would these dewy tears were from the ground. 
Not shine to-day ! Why, what is that to me 
More than to Richmond ? for the self-same heaven 
That frowns on me looks sadly upon him. 285 

Enter Norfolk. 

Norfolk. Arm, arm, my lord ; the foe vaunts in 
the field. 

King Richard. Come, bustle, bustle. Caparison 
my horse. 
Call up Lord Stanley, bid him bring his power : 
I will lead forth rny soldiers to the plain, 
And thus my battle shall be ordered : 290 

My foreward shall be drawn out all in length, 
Consisting equally of horse and foot ; 
Our archers shall be placed in the midst : 
John Duke of Norfolk, Thomas Earl of Surrey 
Shall have the leading of this foot and horse. 295 

They thus directed, we will follow 
In the main battle, whose puissance on either side 
Shall be well wingfed with our chiefest horse. 
This, and Saint George to boot ! What think'st 
thou, Norfolk? 



162 KINO RICHARD III. [act v. 

300 Norfolk. A good direction, warlike sovereign. 
This found I on my tent this morning. 

[Giving a scroll. 
King Richard. [Reads.'] 

" Jocky of Norfolk, be not too bold, 
For Dickon thy master is bought and sold." 

A thing devised by the enemy. 

305 Go, gentlemen, every man unto his charge : 
Let not our babbling dreams affright our souls : 
For conscience is a word that cowards use, 
Devis'd at first to keep the strong in awe : 
Our strong arms be our conscience, swords our law. 

310 March on, join bravely, let us to 't pell-mell ; 
If not to heaven, then hand in hand to hell. 
What shall I say more than I have inferr'd? 
Remember whom you are to cope withal ; 
A sort of vagabonds, rascals, runaways, 

315 A scum of Bretons, and base lackey peasants, 
Whom their o'er-cloyed country vomits forth 
To desperate adventures and assur'd destruction. 
You sleeping safe, they bring you to unrest ; 
You having lands, and bless' d with beauteous 
wives, 

320 They would restrain the one, distain the other. 
And who doth lead them but a paltry fellow, 
Long kept in Bretagne at our mother's cost? 
A milksop, one that never in his life 
Felt so much cold as over shoes in snow ? 

325 Let's whip these stragglers o'er the seas again ; 
Lash hence these overweening rags of France, 
These famish' d beggars, weary of their lives ; 
Who, but for dreaming on this fond exploit, 
For want of means, poor rats, had hang'd them- 
selves. 

330 If we be conquer' d, let men conquer us, 

And not these bastard Bretons, whom our fathers 



sc. iv.] KING RICHARD III. 163 

Have in their own land beaten, bobb'd, and 

thump 7 d, 
And, on record, left theni the heirs of shame. 
Shall these enjoy our lands? insult our wives ? 
Ravish our daughters? Hark, I hear their drum. 335 

[Drum afar off. 
Fight, gentlemen of England ! fight, bold yeomen ! 
Draw, archers, draw your arrows to the head ! 
Spur your proud horses hard, and ride in blood ; 
Amaze the welkin with your broken staves ! 

Enter a Messenger. 

What says Lord Stanley ? will he bring his power ? 340 

Messenger. My lord, he doth deny to come. 

King Richard. Off with his son George's head ! 

Norfolk. My lord, the enemy is past the marsh : 
After the battle let George Stanley die. 

King Richard. A thousand hearts are great 

within my bosom : 345 

Advance our standards, set upon our foes ; 
Our ancient word of courage, fair Saint George, 
Inspire us with the spleen of fiery dragons ! 
Upon them ! Victory sits on our helms. [Exeunt. 

SCENE TV .—Another part of the Field. 

Alarum: Excursions. Enter Norfolk, and Forces; 
to him Catesby. 

Catesby. Rescue, my Lord of Norfolk, rescue, 



rescue 



The king enacts more wonders than a man, 
Daring an opposite to every danger : 
His horse is slain, and all on foot he fights, 
Seeking for Richmond in the throat of death. 5 

Rescue, fair lord, or else the day is lost ! 



164 KING RICHARD III. [act v. 

Alarum. Enter King Richard. 

King Richard. A horse ! a horse ! my kingdom 

for a horse ! 
Catesby. Withdraw, my lord , I '11 help you to a 

horse. 
King Richard. Slave, I have set my life upon a 
cast, 
10 And I will stand the hazard of the die : 
I think there be six Richmonds in the field ; 
Five have I slain to-day, instead of him. 
A horse ! a horse ! my kingdom for a horse ! 

[Exeunt. 

SCENE V .—Another part of the Field. 

Alarums. Enter, from opposite sides, King Rich- 
ard and Richmond ; they fight and exeunt fig) ht- 
ing. Retreat and flourish. Then re-enter Rich- 
mond and Stanley, bearing the crown, and 
divers other Lords and Forces. 

Richmond. God and your arms be prais'd, vic- 
torious friends ; 
The day is ours, the bloody dog is dead. 
Stanley. Courageous Richmond, well hast thou 
acquit thee. 
Lo, here, this long-usurped royalty, 
5 From the dead temples of this bloody wretch 
Have I pluck' d off to grace thy brows withal : 
Wear it, enjoy it, and make much of it. 

Richmond.* Great God of heaven, say Amen to 
all! 
But, tell me, is young George Stanley living? 
io Stanley. He is, my lord, and safe in Leicester 
town ; 
Whither, if it please you, we may now withdraw 
us. 



sc. v. KING RICHARD III. 165 

Richmond. What nien of name are slain on 
either side ? 

Stanley. John Duke of Norfolk, Walter Lord 
Ferrers, 
Sir Robert Brakenbury, and Sir William Brandon. 

Richmond. Inter their bodies as becomes their 

births : 1 5 

Proclaim a pardon to the soldiers fled 
That in submission will return to us : 
And then, as we have ta'en the sacrament, 
We will unite the white rose and the red : 
Smile heaven upon this fair conjunction, 20 

That long hath frown'd upon their enmity ! 
What traitor hears me, and says not Amen? 
England hath long been mad, and scarr'd herself; 
The brother blindly shed the brother's blood, 
The father rashly slaughter' d his own son, 25 

The son, compel!' d, been butcher to the sire ; 
All this divided York and Lancaster, 
Divided in their dire division, 
O, now let Richmond and Elizabeth, 
The true sueceeders of each royal house, 30 

By God's fair ordinance conjoin together ! 
And let their heirs, God, if thy will be so, 
Enrich the time to come with smooth-fae'd peace, 
With smiling plenty, and fair, prosperous days ! 
Abate the edge of traitors, gracious Lord, 35 

That would reduce these bloody days again, 
And make poor England weep in streams of blood ! 
Let them not live to taste this land's increase 
That would with treason wound this fair land's 

peace ! 
Now civil wounds are stopp'd, peace lives again ; 40 
That she may long live here, God say Amen ! 

[Exeunt. 



NOTES. 



Abbreviations. — A.-S. = Anglo-Saxon: M.E. = Middle 
English (from the 13th to the 15th century) ; Fr. = French ; 
Ger. = German ; Gr. = Greek ; Cf. = compare (Lat. confer) ; 
Abbott refers to the excellent Shakespearean Grammar of Dr. 
Ahbott; Schmidt, to Dr. Schmidt's invaluable Shakespeare- 
Lexicon. 

ACT FIRST. 
Scene 1. 

2. Sun of York, in allusion to the cognizance of Edward IV. 
—a blazing sun, adopted by him in memory of the three 
suns which appeared the day before the battle of Mortimer's 
Cross, fought in 1461. 

6. The helmet which Henry V. wore at Agincourt still 
hangs over his tomb in "Westminster Abbey. 

7. Alarums, calls to arms, as by beat of drum, or trumpet 
call. Italian alVarme, to arms ! from Lat. ad ilia arma, to 
those arms ! to your arms ! 

8. Measures, grave and formal dances. 

10. Barbed, armed and harnessed. The word is a corrup- 
tion ofbarded, through Fr., from Lat. bardatus. 

11. Fearful, full of fear. It is now used only in an active 
sense, as causing fear. 

12. He, war, personified as a soldier. Capers, dances or 

leaps like a goat. Lat. capra, a she-goat. 

13. Lute, a stringed musical instrument, somewhat like a 
guitar. 

18. Proportion, form or shape. 

19. Feature, the whole outward form. 

21. Made up, finished, completed. 

22. Unfashionable, an adverb. Sometimes when two ad- 
verbs are joined together by and, the -/.// of the one is 
omitted, the one termination serving for both. Cf. Julius 
Ccesar, II. i. 224: "Good gentlemen, look fresh and merrily." 

24. Piping time. The tabor and the pipe were emblems of 
peace, as opposed to the drum and the fife, emblems of war. 



168 NOTES. [act i. 

27. Descant, to comment. The word was originally a musi- 
cal term, and was applied to a variation upon the plain 
song, or simple melody. 

29. Entertain, to pass agreeably. 

32. Inductions, the beginnings of mischief. 

33. Libels, defamatory writings. M.E. libel, a brief piece of 
writing, from Lat. libellus, a little book, a notice. 

36. As true and just, and therefore the less suspicious of 
foul play on my part. 

38. Mew'd up, shut up, imprisoned. The word meiv (Old 
Fr. mue, from Lat. mutare, to change) meant originally a 
moulting-place, a cage for hawks while mewing or moulting. 
Cf. Chaucer's iSquieres Tale (line 643) : " And by Mr beddes 
heed she made a metae." 

39. Prophecy. Some haue reported, that the cause of this 
noble mans death rose of a foolish prophesie, which was, 
that after K. Edward one should reigne, whose first letter of 
his name should be a G. Wherewith the king and queene 
were sore troubled, and began 1o conceiue a greeuous grudge 
against this duke, and could not be in quiet till they had 
brought him to his end. And as the diuell is woont to in- 
cumber the minds of men which delite in such diuelish 
fantasies, they said afterward, that that prophesie lost not 
his effect, when after king Edward Glocester vsurped his 
kingdome. (Holinshed.) 

49. Belike, probably. 

55. Cross-row, the alphabet, so named because a cross was 
formerly placed at the beginning, called also Christ-cross-row. 

58. For = because. 

60. Toys, idle fancies, foolish causes. 

62. This it is, this is the consequence. 

64. My Lady Grey. Elizabeth Woodville, the widow of Sir 
John Grey, who was killed at the second battle of St. 
Albans, in 1461. Edward IV. married her in 14(34. 

60. Worship, dignity. 

67. Anthony Woodville, Earl Rivers, the patron of Caxton. 
The line is thus scanned, according to Abbott: 

A'nthon | y Wood | {e) ville | her broth | er there. 

72. Heralds, messengers. Old Fr. heralt, a word of Teutonic 
origin; Old Ger. herolt (modern Ger. herold), for hari-ivald, 
army strength, a name for a warrior; hari (modern Ger. 
heer), an army, and wait, «v//^(raodern Ger. r/e-widt), strength. 

73. Mistress Shore, the celebrated mistress of Edward IV. 
Her husband, whom she deserted for the king, was a 
wealthy London merchant. After the death of her royal 
paramour, she fell into great poverty and distress, and, ac- 
cording to tradition, died miserably in a ditch, known ever 
after as Shoreditch. 



sc. ii.] NOTES. 169 

77. Chamberlain. Lord Hastings was created Lord Cham- 
berlain by Edward IV. soon alter his coronation. He had 
been imprisoned in the Tower for a short time during Ed- 
ward's reign, by the instigation of the queen's family. 

78. Our way, our best course. 

80. Livery, the distinctive dress worn by retainers or ser- 
vants, so called because delivered or given out at regular 
periods. Fr. livree, past participle of livrer, to deliver, from 
Lat. liberare, to set free, give freely. 

81. O'er-worn, worn-out, faded. The queen, however, was 
now (1471) only thirty-four years of age, five years older than 
the king. 

83. Gossip, a term conveying a sense of contempt. The 
word meant originally a sponsor at baptism, and from sig- 
nifying those who were associated in .the festivities of a 
christening, it came to denote generally those who were ac- 
customed to make merry together. M.E. gossib, also godsib, 
related in God, from God, God, and sib, related. The word 
sib is still current in Scotland in the sense of related. 

88. An 't, if it. 

89. Partake, share in the hearing of. 

92. Well struck in years, well advanced in years. A.-S. 
strican, to go, proceed, past tense strdc, past participle stricen. 
The scansion is somewhat difficult. Year is sometimes 
sounded as a dissyllable. 

"Well stnlck | in ye | ars,fd | ir and | not jealous. 

But the first and second folios hnxejealious, and the word is 
often written thus by Elizabethan authors. Thus the line 
would scan :— 

Well struck | in years | fair and | not jeal | ious. 

94. Passing, exceedingly, an adverb. This line is a'perfect 
Alexandrine, and is thus scanned : 

A cher | ry lip, | a b6n | ny eye, | a pass | ing pleas | ing 
ton'gue. 

99. Naught, from A.-S. ndtuiht, also naht, made up of nd, not 
and wiht, a whit. Its derivative naught-y means literally 
naught-like, therefore worthless, bad. 

100. The phrases I were best, thou were best, he were best, 
are due to an old impersonal idiom : me were liefer = it 
would be most pleasant to me, me were loth, him were 
better, etc. 

106. Abj^cts, the most despicable of her subjects. Other 
words in Shakespeare in which the accent is nearer the end 
than with us, are aspect, commerce, consort, edict, envy', 
(verb), obdurate, portents, record (noun), etc. 



170 NOTES. [act i. 

107. I will unto the king. This ellipsis of the verb of motion 
after will or is, is very common ; see in the present play, I. i. 
116; II. iv. 66; III. ii. 31: IV. iv. 6; V. iii. 46. See Abbott's 
Shakespearean Grammar, sect. 405. 

115. Lie, lie in prison, either in your stead, or as a conse- 
quence of my exertions in your behalf. 

116. An allusion to the old. proverb, "Patience, perforce is 
medicine to a mad dog." 

122. Good time of day, a common form of salutation. 

131. Prevail' d = had influence. 

137. Fear = fear for him. 

139. Diet = the whole method of life. 

145. George, the Duke of Clarence. Posthorse, used as an 

emblem for swiftness. 
147. Steel'd, strengthened or supported. 

152. The youngest daughter of the Earl of Warwick was 
Anne, who was married, perhaps merely betrothed, to Ed- 
ward, son of Henry VI. She is incorrectly spoken of as the 
eldest daughter in Henry VI., Part III., III. iii. 242. 

153. Shakespeare follows the traditional account, which 
makes it Richard who stabbed to death the young prince 
after the battle of Tewksbury, and in Henry VI., Part III., 
V. v. 39, he is represented as actually murdering him. In I. 
iv. 56, it is ascribed to Clarence on the best authority — that of 
the ghost of the murdered man. Richard does not mean to 
claim that he killed Warwick actually with his own hand 
at the battle of Barnet, but that, as he led the vanguard of 
King Edward's army, and had the principal share of the 
battle, the great kingmaker's death was indirectly due to 
him. 

156. The which. Which being an adjective, frequently ac- 
companies the repeated antecedent, where deriniteness is 
desired, or where care must be taken to select the right 
antecedent. This repetition is more common with the defi- 
nite the which. Cf. Henry IV., Part I., V. iv. 121: "The 
better part of valor is discretion ; in the which better part I 
have saved my life." 

157. Referring to his design upon the crown, but it is diffi- 
cult to understand how his marriage with Anne could help 
him in this ambition. 

It might, however, procure him a share in the immense 
estates of the lady's father, Richard Neville, the great Earl 
of Warwick, known in history as the "king-maker," the 
" setter-up and puller-down of kings," as Shakespeare puts it. 

Scene 2. 

The interview between Lady Anne and Richard in this 
scene over the dead body of Henry VI. is wholly imaginary. 



sc. il] NOTES. 171 

2. May = can. May (A.-S. mugari) originally meant to be 
able, and a trace of this meaning exists in the noun might, 

which means ability. Hearse, M.E. herse, through Old Fr. 

fierce (modern herse), a harrow, a frame, from Lat. hirpex, a 
harrow. The original sense was a triangular harrow, then a 
triangular frame for supporting lights at a church service, 
especially at a funeral, then a funeral-pageant, a bier, a car- 
riage for a dead body. 

3. Obsequiously, in the character of a mourner. 

5. Key-cold, as cold as a key, vised of dead bodies. The 
coldness of a key is proverbial, and a popular schoolboy 
remedy for bleeding at the nose still is to put a key down 
the back, the coldness being supposed to check the flowing 
of the blood. 

8. Invocate = invoke. 

12. Windows, the wounds in his body. 

13. Helpless, affording no help, unavailing. 

16. The blood = the passion or angry disposition. 

17. Hap, chance. 

22. Prodigious, portentous. 

25. Unhappiness, power of rendering unhappy. 

28. Thee refers to the body of King Henry. 

31. Still, constantly. 

32. Whiles, an obsolete form of while. 

40. Halberd, a battle-axe fixed to a long pole. Old Fr. hale- 
barde, from Old Ger. helrribarte, later helenbarte (Modern Ger. 
hellebarte), made up of Old Ger. halm, a handle, or helve, and 
parta (Ger. barte), an axe. 

42. Spurn upon thee, kick thee. Usually with against or at. 

4!t. Curst, shrewish. 

52. Exclaims, exclamations. Other words used similarly 
as nouns by Shakespeare without the suffixes, are solicit, 
consult, expect, depart, dispose, repine, retire, impose, appear, 
manage, etc. 

56. Other words than eongeafd used by Shakespeare, with 
the accent nearer the beginning than with us, are Qdmplete, 
cbnceaVd, conduct, confessor, delectable, distinct, forlorn, 
humane, mature, plebeian, pursuit, relapse, secure, etc. 

It was formerly a universal belief that the wounds of a 
murdered person began to bleed afresh in the presence of 
the murderer ; and it was actually urged, so late as 1688, in 
the High Court of Judiciary at Edinburgh, in a case of patri- 
cide, as an evidence of guilt. Brand quotes from King 
James's Dcemonology the following pertinent passage : "Ina 
secret murther, if the dead carkasse be at any time there- 
after handled by the murtberer, it will gush out of blood, as if 
the blood were crying to heaven for the revenge of the mur- 
therer." 



172 NOTES. [act i. 

Shakespeare has closely followed Holinshed's account of 
the funeral of Henry VI. " The dead corps on the Ascension 
euen was conueied with hills and glaues pompouslie (if you 
will call that a funerall ponipe) from the Tower to the 
church of Saint Paule, and there laid on a heire or coffen 
bare faced, the same in presence of the beholders did bleed ; 
where it rested the space of one whole daie. From thense 
he was carried to the Black-friers, and bled there likewise ; 
and on the next daie after it was conueied in a boat, without 
priest or clerk, torch or taper, singing or saieng, vnto the 
monasterie of Chertseie, distant from London fifteene miles, 
and there was it first buried : but after, it was remooued to 
Windesor, and there in a new vawt, newlie intoomed." 

58. Exhales, draws forth. 

(54. Either is a monosyllable here ; similarly further, hither, 
neither, whether, etc. 

65. Quick, alive. Numbers 16: 30. M.E. quik, from A.-S. 
cwic. 

70. Thou here implies anger and contempt. Thou in 
Shakespeare's time was very much like du now among the 
Germans, the pronoun of (1) affection towards friends, (2) 
good-humored superiority to servants, and (3) contempt or 
anger to strangers. 

71. But, immediately preceded by a subject, often expels 
the subject from the succeeding relative clause. 

76. The v is dropped in evil, and the word thus made mono- 
syllabic. 

78. Defus'd infection = shapeless plague. The phrase is 
coined as a kind of parody upon divine perfection. 

92. In Henry VI, Part III., V. 5, the three brothers, Ed- 
ward, Richard, and Clarence all stab the young prince, but 
Edward is the first to strike. 

96. Bend = point against. 

102. Shakespeare follows Sir Thomas More, in making 
Richard the actual slayer of Henry VI. 

108. Holp = helped. A.-S. helpan, healp, hoVpen. 

117. Effect, explained by Schmidt as efficient cause, the 
abstract being put for the concrete. Wright notes that it is 
difficult, in such a quibbling dialogue, to attach very strict 
meanings to the words employed. He adds, that cause and 
effect would seem to be used as a comprehensive phrase to 
denote the whole of any action from beginning to end, and 
Anne perhaps means to imply that the murder of Henry 
and his son was altogether the work of Richard, who was 
both prompter and executioner. 

126. Both, both day and life. 

145. Basilisk's. Basilisk (Gr. basileus, king), a name given 
to the serpent— the sight of which was supposed to be fatal 



sc. in.] NOTES. 173 

to man— because of a white spot on its head resembling a 
diadem. 

152. Edmund, Earl of Rutland, "pretty Rutland," the boy- 
brother of Edward and Richard, was brutally killed by 
Lord Clifford after the battle of Wakefield. 

155. Richard, Duke of York, was killed by Clifford at the 
close of the battle of Wakefield, and his head crowned in 
mockery with a paper crown, and fixed on the gates of York. 

157. That, so that. 

163. Smoothing, flattering. 

164. Fee, reward. 

207. Presently, instantly. Crosby Place, or Crosby House, 

the residence of Gloucester in London. 

229.- 
Having God | hereon | science, and | these bars | against mo. 

232. One could have wagered the whole world against 
nothing; that I would not be successful in winning her. 

236. Fought May 4, 1471. " 

238. Prodigality, profusion, excessive liberality. 

244. Moiety, half. 

246. My dukedom bet against a beggar's denier. This wa's 
the smallest possible coin — the one-twelfth part of a sou. 

249. Proper, handsome. 

250. At charges for, at the expense of. 

251. Entertain, engage. 
253. In = into. 

Scene 3. 

1. Majesty. Pronounced as a dissyllable. 
6. Betide, become. 

16. Miscarry, if any harm happen to the king. 

17. Stanley was created Earl of Derby after the battle of 
Bosworth Field. 

20. Countess Richmond, the mother of Heniw VII., was a 
grand-daughter of John of Gaunt. She married Edmund 
Tudor, Earl of Richmond, who was the son of Henry V.'s 
widow by her marriage with Owen Tudor. The Countess 
next married Lord Henry Stafford, uncle of the Duke of 
Buckingham of our play, and for her third husband, the 
Lord Stanley of the play, afterwards created Earl of Derby. 

31. But now, just now. 

36. Atonement, at-onement, reconciliation. 

4ii. Dissentious, apt to breed discord, seditious. 

48. Cog, to cheat. 

49. Duck, bow. There are many allusions in the literature 
of Shakespeare's time to the affectation of imitating French 
manners. Apish, imitative. 



174 NOTES. [act i. 

53. Jacks, paltry fellows. 

61. Lewd, base. The word originally meant merely ig- 
norant, hence lay, belonging to the laity. 

01. Else, a superfluous word. 

6.5-68. The fact that the king guesses at your hatred makes 
him send. The participle with a nominative, originally in- 
tended to be absolute, has been diverted into a subject. The 
grammar is hopelessly wrong. 

82. Noble, a gold coin, worth 6s. Sd. The pun here is very 
obvious. 

8.5. Careful, full of care. 

89. Suspects, suspicions. 

102. I wis = certainly. M.E. ywis, iwis, (A.-S. gewis, certain, 
used also as an adverb), often written Iwis, I-wis. In the 
A.-S. gewis, the ge- is a mere prefix, the adjective wis, certain, 
is allied to wise and wit. This prefix is seen in yclept, and 
appears as e- in enough, and a- in aware. (Skeat.) 

117. Pains, exertions, laborious services. 

121. Shakespeare here, as elsewhere throughout the play, 
has disregarded the facts of history, for Richard was oniy 
eight years old in 1460, when Edward first became king. 

130. The second battle of St. Albans, fought in 1461, called 
Margaret's battle, because the queen was victorious in it, 
and in order to distinguish it from the first battle of St. Al- 
bans, fought in 1455, in which Henry VI. was defeated. 

135. Clarence was Warwick's son-in-law, having married 
the king-maker's elder daughter, Isabel. 

142. Childish-foolish. Adjectives were freely compounded 
by Shakespeare, the first being considered as a kind of ad- 
verb qualifying the second. Thus, sudden-bold, daring-hardy, 
crafty-sick, senseless-obstinate, deep-contemplative, strange-sus- 
picious, etc. 

HI. Cacodemon, evil spirit. This pedantic word occurs 
nowhere else in Shakespeare. 

157. Patient is a trisyllable, as patience in line 246. 

159. Pill'd, plundered. 

163. Gentle is of course applied ironically. 

164. What mak'st thou ? what dost thou? 

167. After Tewksbury , Margaret was confined in the Tower. 
Was ransomed thence in 1475, and died in '82. Her intro- 
duction into this scene is an anachronism. 

191-194. Had the curse which York laid upon me then so 
much effect with Heaven that everything I have lost since 
that time put together can count even now as only a bare 
recompense for the murder of a silly child ? 

212. The superfluous pronoun inserted after the object, as 
here, is not so common as after a proper name when it is 
the subject. 



sc. in.] NOTES. 175 

217. Heaven, used as a plural. See them, in line 219. 

222. Begnaw. The prefix be- is intensive here. 

228. Elvish-mark'd, marked and disfigured by malignant 
fairies. Abortive, monstrous, unnatural. Rooting, turn- 
ing up the ground as swine do. The allusion here is to the 
white boar, which was the cognizance of Richard. 

230. Slave of Nature. Nature from his very birth had 
stamped upon him the brand with, which slaves were 
marked. 

239 Painted, counterfeit, unreal. Flourish, a mere empty 

shadow, representing what I was in reality. 

240. Bottled, big-bellied, bloated. 

244. Bunch-back'd, hunchbacked. 

253. Malapert, saucy. 

254. Fire-new, new as if from the fire, brand-new. The title 
of Marquis of Dorset was granted in 1475 to Thomas Grey, 
the queen's eldest son by her first husband. 

262. Aery, the brood of an eagle or hawk ; also an eagle's 
nest. Fr. aire, through Low Lat. area, from the Teutonic, as 
in Icelandic, ari, an eagle. When the word was fairly im- 
ported into English, it was ingeniously connected with the 
M. E. ey, an egg, as if the word meant an egg-ery ; hence it 
came to be spelt eyrie or eyry, and to be misinterpreted 
accordingly. (Skeat.) 

265. My son. Margaret quibbles upon words even in such 
a highly excited state of mind. 

311. Pronounce marry as a monosyllable. 

312. Frank'd, shut up as in a frank, or pig-sty. To fatting, 

witli a view to fatting. 

315. Scathe, harm. 

323. Set abroach, set agoing Cf. Romeo and Juliet, I. i. 3: 
"Who set this ancient quarrel new abroachV The prefix a- 
is used before nouns and adjectives, and participles used as 
nouns ; and as the prefix in composition with participles and 
adjectives. Cf. abed, athirst, olive; agoing; ahanging, 
acold ; and afraid, athirst, anhungered. Broach is now used 
only as a verb, but this instance is due to older substantive 
usage. 

326. Beweep. The prefix be gives a kind of transitive sig- 
nificance to a verb that would of itself require a preposition. 
Similarly, begnaw, behowl, bespeak, etc. Gulls, dupes. 

332. A Piece of Scripture, a quotation from the Bible. 

335., Odd old ends, detached quotations with no particular 
appropriateness. 

338. Mates, fellows, implying familiarity and condescen- 
sion. Resolved, resolute. 

347. If you mark him, if you pay attention to him. 



176 NOTES. [act i. 

Scene 4. 
1. Heavily, sadly. 

4. Faithful, as opposed to infidel or faithless. 

5. Such a night. The a is inserted pleonastically here. 

9. Methought. The reading of the folios is methoughts, the 
s having been incorrectly added to assimilate the termina- 
tion to that of methinks. 

27. Unvalued, invaluable. 

37. To yield the ghost, to die. Envious, malignant, 

spiteful. 

40. Bulk, body. 

45. The melancholy flood is the river Styx, which flows 
seven times round the infernal regions. 

46. Ferryman. Charon, whose task it is to convey in his 
boat the shades of the dead across the rivers of the lower 
world. 

55. Fleeting, inconstant. 

71. In me, on me. - 

80. Instead of the dreams they form but never realize. 

94. Guiltless, innocent of, ignorant of. 

119. Tell, count. A.-S. tellan, to number, tain, a number, 
narrative. Allied words are Dutch taal, speech; Icelandic 
tal, speech ; German zahl, number. 

141. Shamefast, modest. The word is now spelt shame- 
faced by a singular confusion with face, due to the fact that 
shame is commonly indicated by the face. 

151. Insinuate, to meddle with. 

155. Tall, stout, spirited. 

158. Take him = strike him. Costard, a slang expression 

for the head. 

160. According to Holinshed (Edward IV., p. 346, 1808 ed.), 
"finallie the duke was cast into the Tower, and therewith 
adiudged for a traitor, and priuilie drowned in a butt of 
vialmesie." 

166-176. The uses of thou and you may be seen very clearly 
in this passage. Thou is the customary address from supe- 
riors to inferiors, and is expressive, besides, of any excite- 
ment or sensibility, of familiar tenderness as well as of 
anger; of reverence as well as of contempt. Thus the 
constant address of Venus to Adonis in Shakespeare's poem 
is thou; of Adonis to Venus, you. 

193. Evidence = the witnesses. 

194. Quest, inquest or jury . 
197. Convict, convicted. 
215. Forswearing, perjury. 

220. Unrip means simply to cut open. 

220. Dear, used often as a kind of emphatic adjective, the 
sense being, in so great a degree. 



sc. ii.] NOTES. 177 

229. For you the quartos read ye. Ye was originally the 
nominative form ; you, the accusative. This distinction, 
though observed in our version of the Bible, was disregarded 
in the usage of Elizabethan writers. 

234. Gallant-springing, putting forth the promise of beauty 
like buds opening in the Spring. 

235. Novice, one new to anything, just entering on life. 

236. This is love lor my brother. 
238. Provoke, impel. 

253. Millstones. To we'ep millstones was a common proverb 
=not to weep at all, to remain hard and unfeeling as a stone. 
Lesson'd, taught. Any noun or adjective, can be con- 
verted into a verb by the Elizabethan writers, generally in 
an active signification. 

255. The reference is to Proverbs, 26 : 1 : "As snow in 
summer, and as rain in harvest, so honor is not seemly for 
a fool." The first murderer understands hind in the sense 
of natural or foolish. 

259. Labor, bring about. 

263. Turning as he speaks to the second murderer. 



ACT SECOND. 
Scene 1. 

3. Embassage, message. 

5. Part, depart. 

8. Dissemble, do not cover your hatred by a false show of 
friendship. 

11. The so here is conditional, and expresses that his swear- 
ing true love is the condition on which his thriving depends. 

18. Exempt, excepted. 

30. Embracements, embraces. 

34. But . . . doth, and doth not. 

44. Period, consummation. 

51. Swelling with passion. 

66. Lord Rivers was the title of Anthony Woodville, the 

queen's brother. Lord Grey, or rather, Sir Richard Grey, 

was the queen's second son by her first husband. 

74. Compounded, composed, settled amicably. 

78. Flouted, mocked, befooled. 

88. Mercury, the son of Jupiter and Maia, was the ancient 
messenger of the gods. He was furnished with wings to add 
to his speed. 

90. Too lag, too slowly. Lag is a word of Celtic origin, but 
js ultimately cognate with lax and languish. 

91-92, The reference is no doubt to the queen's family. 



178 NOTES. [act ii. 

94. Current, generally received as free from. 

99. Forfeit, the remission of the forfeit. 

117. Thin, thinly clad. Numb-cold, making benumbed 

With coid. 

120. Supply as before to put. 

129. Beholding, beholden, indebted. Shakespeare often 
uses -ing as if it was equivalent to -en, the old affix of the 
passive participle. 

133. Closet, a private room. Cf. Matt. 6: 6. Old Fr. closet, 
diminutive of clos, an inclosed place, from Lat. clausus, past 
participle of claudo, I shut. 



Scene 2. 

Clarence left two children, a boy and a girl. The boy, 
known as Earl of Warwick, was kept perpetually in prison, 
and was executed by Henry VII. in 149!). The girl became 
Countess of Salisbury, but perished at the block in 1541. 

8. Cousins, grandchildren. 

18. Incapable, not able to understand. 

28. Visor, a mask. Properly, it was the front part of a 
helmet covering the face, perforated and movable, so as to 
see through. 

34-35. To wail . . . weep . . . chide . . . torment, from 
wailing, etc. 

38. Impatience, to be pronounced in four syllables. 

51. Mirrors, two glasses which reflected his likeness. These 
refer to Edward and Clarence. 

06. Lamentation. Pronounced as a word of five syllables. 

(is-Tl. Reduce, bring back, as into the ocean. In this ex- 
travagant figure the queen wishes herself a sea into which 
all the springs empty themselves, so that her eyes, under 
the influence of the tide-controlling moon, can express her 
grief with floods of tears sufficient to drown the whole 
world. 

81. There is a reference here to the ancient English method 
of dividing the land, part of which was parceled out among 
individuals, and the rest was held in common by the 
community. 

94. Opposite, on hostile terms. 

110. Butt-end, the largest end. 

112. Cloudy, sorrowful. 

117. Broken rancor, the breaches caused by your rancor. 

118. Splinter'd, bound up with splints like a broken limb. 
129. Please. An instance of the subjunctive used indefinite- 
ly after a relative. 

144. Censures, opinions. 



sc. iv.] NOTES. . 179 

148. Sort occasion, arrange an opportunity. 

149. Index, introduction, the index being placed at the 
beginning of the book. 

151. Consistory, court of assembly. 

Scene 3. 

2. Promise, assure. 

4. By 'r lady, that is, by the Holy Virgin. Seldom comes 

the better, a proverb meaning good news is scarce. The here 
is the ablative of the demonstrative, and signifies with 
comparatives the measure of excess or defect. The sooner 
the better = by how much the sooner by so much the better, 
Lat. quo citius, eo melius. 

11. See Ecclesiastes 10 : 16. 

13. Nonage, minority. 

18. God wot, God knows. Wot is the third person singular 
present indicative of the verb. M. E. infinitive witen ; 
present tense (1) I ivot, (2) thou wost (later wottest, (3) he ivot 
(later wottetlt), plural witen; past tense, Iwiste; past partici- 
ple, ivist. The A.-S. infinitive is icitan; present (1) Ic wat, (2) 
thii wCist, (3) he wdt. plural witon ; past, wiste (also ivisse), plural 
iviston; past participle, wist. Gerund, to witanne (modern 
English, to wit). 

21. Virtuous uncles, the Dukes of Bedford and Gloucester. 

30. Solace, enjoy comfort. 

39. Cannot . . . almost = can hardly. Almost frequently 
follows the word which it qualifies. 

Scene 4. 

1. This archbishop was Thomas Rotherham, Lord Chan- 
cellor of England, afterwards created a cardinal. 

23. Had been remembered = had remembered. 

24. Flout, a jibe or mocking jest. 

35. Parlous, dangerous, a corruption of perilous. Shrewd, 

sharp-tongued. 

46. Can seems here to have its original meaning of know. 

47. Why perhaps refers to the past cause : for what to the 
future object. 

51. Jet and jut are the same in origin, and signify to pro- 
ject, to encroach upon. 

52. Aweless, inspiring no awe. 

61. Over blown, quite blown aside. 

66. The Sanctuary was in the precincts of Westminster 
Abbey. 
72. Tender, to regard with kindness. 



180 NOTES. [act in. 

ACT THIRD. 

Scene 1. 

1. Chamber. London was anciently called Camera regis, the 
King's Chamber. 

2. Cousin means (1) the son or daughter of an nncle or 
aunt; (2) any kinsman or kinswoman, as nephew, uncle, 
niece, grandchild (II. ii. 8; II. iv. 9); (3) a title applied by 
princes to other princes and distinguished noblemen. 

Of = as regards, concerning. 



11. Jumpeth, agrees. 
31. Pe 



31. Peevish, silly, childish. 

32. Cardinal. The unaccented i in the middle of this word 
is dropped in reading. Thomas Bourchier was created 
Archbishop of Canterbury in 1454, and cardinal in 1464. 

46-47. Weigh this action against the violent practices of 
these times, and it cannot be considered as a breach of 
sanctuary ; or, Weigh it by the same standard with which 
actions are weighed in this gross age, and it cannot be looked 
upon as a breach of sanctuary. 

(Hi. Supply where it before shall be thought. 

68. Of any place, of all places I dislike the Tower most. 
This is due to a confusion of two constructions : I dislike 
the Tower more than any place, and most of all places. This 
is a Greek idiom, but occurs pretty frequently in Shakes- 
peare. 

69, It was supposed that Julius Caesar built the Tower, as 
well as the castles of Dover, Rochester, and Salisbury. 

71. Re-edified, rebuilt, the word in its primary meaning. 

79. The saying is ascribed to Cato the Censor : For (saith 
hee) youth resembling age is an undoubted signe of un- 
timely death, or short life. 

82. Formal vice, the conventional vice of the old dramas. 
In the old moralities, there was always one character bear- 
ins the name of some vice, sometimes of Iniquity itself. He 
was gi'otesquely dressed in a cap with asses' ears, a long 
coat, and a dagger of lath ; and he was always accompanied 
by the devil, whom he belabored with his dagger, but was 
ultimately carried off by him to hell. His principal busi- 
ness was to make the audience laugh, and his chief device 
to this end was to play upon the double meaning of words. 

94. Lightly = usually. 

155. Capable, able. 

179. Divided councils, besides the public council held in 
the Tower, there was a private one at Crosby-place. 

185. Mistress Shore. According to Hall, Hastings took her 
for his mistress after the king's death. 

192. Complots, conspiracies. 



sc. iv.] NOTES. 181 

195. Earldom of Hereford. Buckingham claimed this as 
his inheritance, but could never obtain it in King Edward's 
time. 

Scene 2. 

10. Rased, struck. Helm, helmet. 

24. Instance, motive. 

52. Voice, vote. 

69. Bridge, London Bridge, on which the heads of executed 
traitors were exposed. 

74. Rood, the cross or crucifix placed in every church. 
The same word as rod, which is shortened from M.E. rood. 
A.-S. rod, a gallows, a cross, properly a rod, or pole. 

88. The day is spent. Yet the scene opens at four in the 
morning (line 5). 

89. Have with you = come along. 

105. Gramercy = thanks ! From Fr. grand merci, much 
thanks. 

108. Sir John. The title Sir was applied to such priests as 
had taken the degree of bachelor at a university. 

109. Exercise, an exposition of Scripture. 
, 110. Content, pay, satisfy. 

113. Your honor has no occasion to be making your shrift, 
or last confession. 

Scene 3. 

7. Limit, the assigned period. 
10. Closure, compass. 

17. Margaret did not curse Buckingham. 

23. Expiate, terminated. 

Scene 4. 

2. Determine of = decide about. 

5. Wants. This is more probably intransitive than imper- 
sonal ; = is wanting. 

8. Inward, intimate. 

24. Neglect, cause to be neglected. 

26. Upon your cue. The last few words of a speech, by 
which an actor knows when his part is coming, are called 
his cue. Fr. queue, a tail. 

31. The Bishop of Ely was John Morton, afterwards 
Archbishop of Canterbury. Sir Thomas More, in early life, 
was a member of his household, and no doubt learned from 
his lips many of the incidents told in his Life of Richard III. 

34. Marry and will = and so I will. 

45. Prolong'd, put off. 



182 NOTES. [act ni. 

55. Likelihood, sign from which any inference could be 
drawn. 

56. Marry = indeed, to be sure. This exclamation is de- 
rived from the name of the Virgin Mary. 

70. Consorted, allied, associated. 

80. Fond, foolish. 

83. My foot-cloth horse = my horse with its housings or 
trappings. The foot-cloth was the name given to such trap- 
pings, or caparison, of a horse as hung down near the 
ground and were used only by the nobility. 

88. Triumphing = triumphant. 

94. Shrift, last confession. 

95. Momentary grace, favor lasting but for a moment. 
97. Cf. our phrase to build castles in the air. 

Scene 5. 

4. Distraught = distracted. 

8. Intending = pretending. 

11. Grace my stratagems, to set off my schemes. 

13. The Mayor of London at this time, according to Hall, 
was Edmund Shaw, brother of the Doctor Shaw of line 102. 

21. Ratcliff was at Pomfret at this time, conducting the 
execution of Rivers, Grey, and Vaughan. 

24. Dear = dearly. 

25. Plainest harmless ; either the plainest, (the most) 
harmless creature, or plainest-harmless is to be taken as a 
compound word, like sudden-bold, fertile-fresh, crafty-sick, 
etc. ; plainest being regarded as an adverb. 

30-32. That, overlooking the single exception of his mani- 
fest guilt, in his intercourse with Shore's wife, he lived free 
from all stain of suspicion. Guilt in line 30 is in the nomi- 
native absolute. From = free from. 

33. Covert'st, most secret. 

54-55. But now the loving haste of these our friends, some- 
what against our own intentions, has prevented this. 

01. Put a wrong construction on our dealings with him, 
and lament his death. 

63. As = as if. 

69. Of our intent, for our purposes. 

73. In all post, in all haste, as a post or messenger. 

74. Meetest vantage, most favorable opportunity. 

75. Infer, use as an argument. 

76. Hall tells the story of one Burdet, a merchant in Cheap- 
side, at the sign of the Crown, and how his unfortunate jest 
cos.t him his life. 

83. Listed, desired. 

84. For a need, in case of necessity. 



sc. vh.] NOTES. 183 

86. Insatiate, not to be satisfied. The Duke of York suc- 
ceeded the Duke of Bedford as regent of France. 

90. His lineaments, Edward's features. 

97. Bay nard's Castle. This was a residence of Richard, and 
was situated on the north bank of the Thames. 

102-3. Doctor Shaw. . . . Friar Penker. These were both 
popular preachers of the clay. "They were," says Holin- 
shed, " both doctors of divinitie, both great preachers, both 
of more learning than vertue, of more fame than learning." 

105. To take some secret measures. 

106. Brats, originally a rag, clout, especially a child's bib or 
apron ; hence, in contempt, a child. A Celtic word. Clar- 
ence's son was imprisoned both by Richard and Henry 
VII., and ultimately beheaded by the latter; his daughter 
married Sir Richard de la Pole, and was the mother of Car- 
dinal Pole. She was created Countess of Salisbury by 
Henry VIII., but was sent to the block at the age of seventy 
by that vindictive king, in answer to her son's treatise, De 
Unitate Ecclesiastica. 

Scene 6. 

2. Set, regular. 

3. Paul's, at St. Paul's Cross, where there was a kind of 
pulpit erected, from which the people were often addressed. 

4. Sequel, that which follows. 

7. Precedent, the original draft. 

9. Untainted, not stained by any charge. Cf. attainder, III. 
v. 32. 

10. Gross, dull of perception. 

14. When this ill-doing must be seen only in thought, not 
spoken of. 

Scene 7. 

2. Mum, silent. 

4. Lady Lucy. This was Dame Elizabeth Lucy, Lady 
Eleanor Butler, daughter of the Earl of Shrewsbury, to 
whom it was alleged the king had been betrothed before his 
marriage with the widow of Sir John Grey. The evidence 
of this pre-contract rested on the siugle testimony of Robert 
Stillington, Bishop of Bath and Wells. The story has been 
generally discredited by historians. 

Under the canon law, betrothal was as binding as matri- 
mony, and could not be set aside without a dispensation. 
Bulls of divorce were often procured from Rome even )>y 
the party that had done the wrong, dissolving a marriage 
that had endured for years, on the ground of a pre-con- 
tract with another person. It will be remembered that it 
was upon this ground that Henry VIII., before putting 



184 NOTES. [act in. 

Anne Boloyn to death, caused his marriage with her to he 
pronounced invalid by reason of a previous contract on her 
part with Percy, Earl of Northumberland. 

5. The Earl of Warwick had been dispatched to France to 
bring about a marriage with Bona, the French king's sister, 
but in his absence the tickle king fell in love with and 
hastily married Sir John Grey's widow. This public affront 
put upon him, caused the proud kingmaker to abandon the 
Yorkist side. See Henry VI, Part III., III. iii. 

12. Idea, image. 

14. Richard commanded in Scotland in 1482. 

24. Statuas, statues, a trisyllable. Breathing stones, 

stones endowed with life, but speechless. 

29. The recorder is the keeper of the rolls in a city. At this 
time the recorder of London was Thomas Fitzwilliam. 

44. Intend, put on, counterfeit. 

45. Be not you spoken with except after great entreaty. 

47. Churchmen, ecclesiastics. 

48. For I shall make that circumstance the ground of a 
discourse on Richard's piety. Ground here is the plain- 
song, or theme, the descant the variations upon it. 

54. Leads, the flat roof covered with lead. 

55. I dance attendance, I am kept waiting to be admitted. 
61. Divinely = devoutly. 

67. Importing, concerning. 

75. Engross, pamper, fatten. 

80. God defend = God forbid. Fr. defendre has the same 
meaning. 

92. Beads, the little stringed balls of the rosary, so called 
because used in counting the number of prayers. M.E. becle 
— A.-S. bed, a prayer, biddan, to pray. The same word ap- 
pears in bead-roll and 6eod.s-man. 

96. Fall, a defection from virtue, sin. 

111. Disgracious, unpleasing. Dis- is used for un-, in sense 
of without. 

115. If I be not ready to amend my faults, for what purpose 
do I live in a Christian land ? 

124. Doth want = is without, lacks. 

126. Her royal stock impregnated with base elements from 

the-outside. Graft is participle of verb to graff = to make 

an incision into a tree or plant, and insert in it a small 
branch of another, to insert as a scion. 

127. Shoulder'd, pushed violently, with a view to supplant; 
or, sunk to the shoulders. 

Vl\). Re-cure, to heal again. 

133. Factor, agent. 

13* Empery, empire, dominion. 

143. If not to answer best fitted the occasion. 



sc. vii.j NOTES. 185 

147. If to repmve best fitted the occasion. 

149. I check'd for I should have cheeked, a simpler and 
earlier subjunctive form, identical with the indicative form 
used for the subjunctive. Abbott notes, "If it be asked, 
what is the difference between checked here and would 
have cheeked I should say that the simple form of the sub- 
junctive, coinciding in sound with the indicative, implied 
to an Elizabethan more of inevitability (subject, of course, to 
a condition which is not fulfilled). The possibility is re- 
garded as an unfulfilled fact, to speak paradoxically." See 
Abbott's Shakespearean Grammar, sect. 361. 

150. To speak ... to avoid ... to incur. This is 
hardly the infinitive, but the gerund in e, and the to here 
corresponds to the Lat. ad, with the gerund denoting a 
purpose. 

154. Unmeritable, devoid of merit. 

156. Even, plain, smooth. 

157. Ripe revenue, the possession quite mature and ready 
for me to occupy. 

161. To brook, capable of enduring. 

162-163. I had rather hide myself from greatness than seek 
to be crushed under the load of a greatness forced upon me. 

165. I lack many qualities necessary in helping you, were 
my help needed. 

167. Stealing, gliding quietly onwards. 

174. Respects, reasons or motives. Nice, fanciful. 

180. Substitute, deputy, proxy. 

183. A many. The indefinite article was often inserted 
before a numeral adjective, to show that the objects enu- 
merated are regarded collectively as one. Thus we still say 
a score, a fo{u)rt{een)night. The a in a many sons is perhaps 
thus to be explained. Some, however, explain a many by 
reference to the old noun many, a many men for a many 
(of) men. And the word is thus used: "A many of our 
bodies' {Henry V., IV. iii. 95). Nor can it be denied that in 
Early English, of is often omitted in such phrases as euery 
maner ivyght (Chaucer, Sqirieres Tale, 329), just as in German 
we have diese Art Mensch. Dr. Abbott (sect. 87) sums up the 
question by stating that probably both the constructions 
above mentioned are required to explain this use of a. 
Thus a hundred men is for a hundred (of) men ; but in 
a twelvemonth, a fortnight, twelve and fourteen are not re- 
garded as simple nouns, but are used adjectively in the 
compounds. 

The queen had only three children by Sir John Grey. 

186. Purchase, booty. The word is used for acquisition of 
any kind, and by any means. 

187. Pitch, elevation, height. This was the word used to 
denote the height to which a falcon soars. 



186 NOTES. [act iv. 

18S. Declension, deterioration. Bigamy. Wright notes 

that marriage with a widow was regarded as bigamy by the 
canon law. Shakespeare here closely follows More, as 
copied by Hall. The king's mother, the Dowager Duchess 
of York, who was strongly opposed to her son's marriage 
with Elizabeth Grey, urged this as an argument against it. 
'The onely widowhed of dame Elizabeth Grey (although 
she were in all other poinctes and thynges conuenient for 
you) should suffice as me thynketh to refrain you from her 
marriage, and it is an vnfittying thynge and a greate blem- 
ishe to the sacred maiestie of a prince, that ought as nere to 
approche priesthode in clennesse as he doeth in dignitie, to 
be defiled with bigamy in his first marriage." (Hall's 
Chronicle, Edward T"., p. 366). 

191. Expostulate, set forth in full. 

209. As = for so. 

210. Remorse, pity, tenderness of heart. 
212. Estates, ranks. 

231. Acquittance, acquit. 

ACT FOURTH. 

Scene 1. 

1. Niece, here = granddaughter, as nephew = grandson. 
15. Patience, indulgence, leave. 

24. Sights. The plural is frequently used in designating 
an attribute shared by more than one. 

25. On my peril, on my own risk. 

42. Richmond was now in Brittany. 

45. Thrall, slave. This is originally a Scandinavian word, 
cognate with the Old High German drigil, a serf, literally 
runner. The same root appears in Gothic thragjan, A.-S. 
thrcegian, to run, as well as in the Greek treichen, to run. 
The ordinary derivation of thrall from A.-S. thi/rlian, to drill, 
from the practice of boring the ear of a slave, in token of 
servitude (Exodus 21 : 6), is an impossibility. 

49. My son. Lord Stanley had married Lady Margaret, 
and was therefore Richmond's stepfather. 

51. Ta'en tardy, found lingering. 

52. Ill-dispersing, causing friends to separate. 

54. Cockatrice, the same as the basilisk. See note to I. 
ii. 145. The name is due to the belief that it sprung from a 
cock's egg. 

58. Inclusive, encircling. 

59. Round, surround. 

60. Rebels or regicides were sometimes, in the middle ages, 
punished by having a circle of red-hot iron put upon the 



sc. ii.] NOTES. 187 

head. In 1514, the peasants of Hungary, led by George and 
Luke Dosa, rose against the nobles. George, when taken, was 
punished by being seated upon a red-hot iron throne, with a 
red-hot crown and scepter. This is alluded to by Goldsmith 
in his Traveller, line 436: "Luke's iron crown, and Damiens' 
bed of steel," though it is the wrong brother whom he 
makes to suffer the torment. 

64. To feed my humor, do not, in order to lessen my grief, 
wish harm to yourself. 

79. Grossly, stupidly. 

Go thou | to sanctwa | ry and | good thoughts | possess thee. 

95. Eighty-odd years. The Duchess was actually about 
seventy at this time. She survived until 1495. 

96. Teen, sorrow. A.-S. teona, injury. 

Scene 2. 

8. Touch, the touchstone used to test the genuineness or 
purity of any metal which has the appearance of gold. The 
purity of the metal is judged-of from the streak which it 
leaves upon the stone, as compared with the streak made by 
the touch-needle, which is of pure gold. The stone is an ex- 
tremely compact siliceous schist, almost as close as flint, 
and is known also as Black Jasper and Basanite. 

15. Consequence, something that must follow, a necessary 
or inevitable event. 

15-16. The bitter consequence lay in the fact that Edward 
lived as the true, noble prince— to quote Buckingham's 
words with another meaning in them. 

27. This is mentioned by Hall as a habit of Richard's. When 
he stode musing he would byte and chew besely his nether 
lippe, as who sayd, that his fyerce nature in hys cruell body 
alwaies chafed, sturred and was ever vnquiete. 

28. Iron-witted, unfeeling, insensible. 

30. Considerate, thoughtful, observant, the opposite of un- 
respective. 

35. Close, secret. 

42. Witty, quick-witted, clever. 

55. The boy is foolish. Edward, son of Clarence, was im- 
prisoned by Richard III. in Sheriff Hutton Castle. Was 
removed by Henry VII. to the Tower. Beheaded in 1499. 
Imprisonment and lack of education made him idiotic. 
But he was not yet foolish. 

58. About it ; for it is very important for me. 

64. Pluck on, draw on. 

73. Deal upon, act with. 

79. No more but so, that is, to carry out Richard's whis- 
pered instructions. 



188 NOTES. [act iv. 

98. Peevish, silly, thoughtless. 

104. Richard visited Exeter in the first year of his reign. 
This incident is mentioned by Holinshed. "And during 
his abode here he went about the citie and viewed the seat 
of the same, and at length he came to the castell : and when 
he vnderstood that it was called Rugemont, suddenlie he 
fell into a dumpe and (as one astonied) said : Well, I see my 
daies be not long. He spake this of a prophesie told him, 
that when he came once to Richmond, he should not live 
long after." 

114. Jack, the figure which struck the hour upon the bell 
in old clocks. Keep'st the stroke, keepest on striking. 

117. Resolve, answer. 

Scene 3. 

2. Arch, chief (in wickedness). 

6. Flesh'd villains, hardened in villainy. To flesh a dog 
was to reward him with a portion of the first game which 
he killed. 

18. Replenished, perfect. 

19. Prime, first. 

30. It was generally supposed that Tyrrel ordered the two 
princes to be buried at the foot of the stairs leading to the 
chamber in which they were murdered. During some re- 
pairs in 1674, the workmen discovered about ten feet deep, 
under a staircase in the White Tower, the bones of two boys 
of about twelve years of age, which were supposed to be 
those of the two princes. The bones were interred in West- 
minster Abbey, by order of Charles II. 

31. At after-supper. After-supper may be a prepositional 
compound (like after-noon), meaning the slighter repast 
which followed the more substantial meal ; or at after may 
merely be equivalent to after, as clearly in Chaucer's 
Squieres Tale, 302: "At-after soper goth this noble king." 

38. Abraham's bosom, a euphemism for the grave. Cf. Luke 
16 : 22. 

40. Breton, because he had fled for refuge to Brittany. 

46. Bishop of Ely, who was kept in the custody of Buck- 
ingham at Brecknock, but made his escape to Richmond. 

He was afterwards made Archbishop of Canterbury. 

50. Rash -levied, hastily collected. 

51. Fearful commenting, timid reasoning. 

51-55. Timid thoughts are accompanied by tardy move- 
ments and indolent delay ; delay brings along with it weak- 
ness and ruin, therefore let my policy be one of fiery enter- 
prise and fierce dispatch. 

m. My counsel is my shield, I do not deliberate, but fight, 



sc. rv.J NOTES. 189 

Scene 4. 
1. Mellow, ripen. 
3. Confines, districts. 

5. Induction, beginning. 

6. Consequence, the sequel. 

15. Right for right, measure for measure, a just punish- 
ment for an offense against justice. 

20. Quit, pay or compensate for. 

21. A dying debt, a debt of death. 

26-29. These lines the duchess addresses to herself. 

36. Seniory, priority from age. 

37. Let my griefs exceed yours. 

40. Edward, her son, young Prince Edward, murdered after 
the battle of Tewksbury. 

41. Henry, Henry VI., her husband. 

42-43. These lines are addressed to Queen Elizabeth. 
Edward and Richard Duke of York were the two murdered 
princes. 

44. Richard, Duke of York, father of Edward IV., Clarence, 
and Richard III. 

45. Rutland. See I. ii. 152, and note. 
53. Galled, sore with weeping. 

56. Carnal, flesh-devouring. 

58. Pew-fellow, companion, literally one who sits in the 
same pew at church. 

63. Thy Edward = Edward IV. My Edward, Prince Ed- 
ward, who was killed at Tewksbury. 

64. Thy other Edward, the young prince, Edward V. 

65. York, the young murdered Duke of York, brother of 

the prince, Edward V. But boot, but something thrown 

into the bargain. Boot literally means addition. A.-S. b'vt, 
profit, ultimately from the same root as better. It is still 
preserved in the adjective bootless. The phrase to boot 
means in addition. 

71. Intelligencer, agent or go-between. 

72. Their, the plural for the singular. 

75. Lines with four accents are sometimes found as here, 
where several short clauses or epithets are connected 
together in one line, and pronounced slowly. 
77. Cf. Macbeth, III. ii. 49 : 

" Cancel and tear in pieces that great bond 
Which keeps me pale." 

84. Presentation, the mere semblance. 

85. Flattering, deluding with vain hopes. Index, the 

prelude, or introduction to. Pageant, a show or spectacle, 

86. A-high, on high. The adjective being here considered 
as a noun, is preceded by a, which represents the A,-S, on, 
on, as in a-bed, among, etc. 



190 NOTES. [act iv. 

89. Garish, gaudy, showy. 

97. Decline, run through from first to last, as one would a 
list of grammatical inflections. 

98-101. For = instead of. 

101. Caitiff, a wretch. Old Fr. caitif (modern Fr. chctif,) from 
Lat. captious, from capio, capere, to take. 

108. To torture, the infinitive expressing purpose. The 

more ; the here is not the article, but the old demonstrative 

= by that the more. See note to II. iii. 4. Being what thou 

art. Supply thou in the nominative absolute before being. 

111. My burden'd yoke, the yoke which is a burden to me. 

127. Windy attorneys, etc. (words) windy representatives 
or substitutes for silent woes. 

128. Airy succeeders of joys that have perished and left 
nothing behind. 

135. Be copious in exclaims, be plentiful in your reproaches. 
151. Entreat me fair, use me well. 

157. A touch of your condition, a dash of your temper. 
168. Tetchy, irritable. 

170. Thy prime of manhood, thy early manhood. 

171. Thy age confirm'd, thy full manhood. 

172. Kind, that is, in appearance. 

180. Humphrey Hour. This passage, as Schmidt observes, 
has not yet been satisfactorily explained. The phrase to 
dine with Duke Humphrey was a common expression for 
going without one's dinner, and originated, according to 
Nares, in the following manner: Humphrey, Duke of Glou- 
cester, though really buried at St. Albans, was supposed to 
have a monument in old St. Paul's, from which one part of 
the church was termed Duke Humphrey's Walk. In this, 
as the church was then a place of the most public resort, 
they who had no means of procuring a dinner frequently 
loitered about, probably in hopes of meeting with an invita- 
tion, but under pretense of looking at the monuments. 

Hunter says that, as Humphrey was Duke of Gloster, 
Richard intends some reference to the hour of his own birth, 
when his mother was, as it were, delivered from fasting 
with the duke. Forth of, away from. 

193-198. In these lines, tire (193), necessarily subjunctive, 
impresses on the reader that the co-ordinate verbs, fight Q95), 
whisper (197), and promise (198), are also subjunctive. This 
aptative use of the subjunctive, dispensing with let, may, etc., 
gives great vigor to the Shakespearean line (Abbott, sect. 365). 

207. Level, aim. 

222. Unavoided, unavoidable. 

'227. Cozen'd, cheated. The play upon the words is ex- 
plained by the etymology. To cozen is to act as cousin or 
kinsman, to sponge upon, to beguile, 



sc. iv.] NOTES. 191 

234. Still, constant. 

238. Tackling, cordage. Reft, bereft. 

241. Success, issue, result. 

243. Type, image. 

252. Demise, bequeath. 

254. Withal, follows its object, but is (on account of the all 
at the end of the previous verse) not placed at the end of this 
sentence. 

255. Lethe, the river in the lower world from which the 
shades drank, and thus obtained forgetfulness of the past. 

259. Telling, a-telling, or in telling. Date, time of dura- 
tion. 
263-265. From, away from, apart from. 
268.- 

And m^an | to make | her qu<5en | of E'ng | (e)land. 

297. Shall deal, cannot help dealing. 

298. The original relative was that. Who and what were 
Interrogatives, the former being the form for the masculine 
and feminine alike, the latter for the neuter. Which (A.-S. 
hwilc, hwelc, short for hwl-llc, literally why -like; hwi being 
the instrumental case of hwa, who, and lie the adjective 
like) was also used interrogatively. Which, ivho.se, and whom 
occur as relatives as early as the end of the twelfth century, 
but who as a relative is not found, according to Dr. Morris, 
before the fourteenth century. Dr. Abbott notes that if 
Wicliffe's version of the New Testament be compared with 
the versions of the sixteenth century and with that of 1611, 
that in the former will be found replaced by ivhich and 
who in the latter, who being especially common in the latest, 
the Authorized Version. 

304. Mettle, disposition. 

322. Orient, shining: properly Eastern, as pearls came first 
from the East. 

323. Advantaging, making up for. 
345. That, object of entreats. 

364. The puns deprive the conversation of all appearance 
of genuine feeling. 

366. The George and Garter were insignia of the Order of 
the Garter, but the former was not added until the time of 
Henry VII. The George is a figure of St. George, the patron 
saint of England, in the act of killing the dragon. The 
Garter is worn on the left leg, and is inscribed with the motto, 
Honi soft qui mat y pense. 

369. His, its. His is much more common in Shakespeare 
than its, which, indeed, was just coming into use in the 
great dramatist's time. He uses it only about ten times. 
Its does not occur in the Bible of 1611 (which has it where 



192 NOTES. [act iv. 

modern editions have its in Leviticus 25 : 5), nor in Spenser, 
is found only thrice in Milton's verse, and is not common 
until the time of Dryden. 

392. Youth, in apposition with children. 

405. Tender, regard not. 

417. Peevish-fond, childishly foolish. 

426.— 

I go, | write to | me v6 | ry sh6rt | (e) ly. 

429. Elizabeth was not won over in a single interview, but 
she did consent that her daughter might marry Richard. 
Some think, however, that she feigned acquiescence and so 
outwitted Richard. Her daughter's hand was already 
pledged to Richmond, and the mother knew the whole plot 
for seating Richmond on the throne. 

432. Puissant, powerful. 

436. Hull, float without use of sails. 

454. Richard's inconsistent orders reveal the agitation of 
his mind. 

462. White-liver'd runagate, cowardly vagabond. The liver 
was considered to be the seat of courage. Runagate is a 
corruption of M.E. renegat, a renegade, apostate, through Fr. 
from Lat. renegatus, renegare; re, again, and negare, to deny. 
The corruption in the form of the word was due to a mistaken 
identity on the analogy of run-asway with runne a gate = run 
on the road, be a vagabond. (Skeat.) 

467. Chair, the throne. Sword, the sword of state. 

474. Welshman. Richmond was the grandson of Owen 
Tudor. 

498. This is found in Hall. The Courtneys, however, were 
not brothers, but cousins. 

502. Competitors, confederates. Every, a trisyllable. 

505. The owl's cry was supposed to be a portent of death. 

516. Sir Thomas Lovel was afterwards Treasurer of the 
Household to Henry VII. 

531. Richmond landed at Milford, August 7, 1485. 

534. Royal battle, a battle Dn which a kingdom depends. 

Scene 5. 

L Sir Christopher Urswick was the confidential chaplain 
©f Margaret. He afterwards became Dean of York. 

3. Frank'd, shut up. 

U. Sir William Stanley, brother of Thomas, Lord Stanley. 

12. Oxford, John de Vere, Earl of Oxford. Pembroke* 

Jasper Tudor, Earl of Pembroke, uncle of Richmond. 

20. Resolve-, assure. 



•c. I.] NOTES. 193 

ACT FIFTH. 

Scene 1. 

4. Holy. Henry VI., though never canonized, was popu- 
larly considered as a saint. See Wordworth's sonnet, In- 
side of King' s College Chapel, Cambridge: "Tax not the royal 
saint with vain expense." 

10. All-Soul's day : the day on which supplications are 
made for all souls by the Roman Church, the 2d of November. 

13. See II. i. 32-40. 

19. Determin'd respite, the fixed term to which the wrongs 
done by me have been limited. 

25. See I. iii. 297-299. 

Scene 2. 
2. Bruis'd, crushed. 

7. Boar, Richard, from his cognizance. 

9. Swills, greedily drinks. Wash, the drink given to 

hogs from washed dishes. 
13. Tamworth is about fifteen miles from Bosworth. 
21. Dearest need, greatest need. 

Scene 3. 

8. All's one for that, no matter for that. 

9. Descri'd, observed. 

11. Battalia, host, army. Account, reckoning. 

12. Proverbs 18: 10 : " The name of the Lord is a strong 
tower." 

15. Vantage, the points of advantage. 

16. Sound direction, skill in planning military movements. 

20. Track, course. Helios, the god of the sun, rose in the 
morning, in the east, out of the ocean • traversed the 
heavens in a flaming car, drawn by four horses ; and de- 
scended in the evening into the darkness of the ocean in the 
west. 

21. A bright sky at sunset is supposed to portend a fine 
on the morrow. 

25. Limit, appoint. Several, particular. 

26. Part, divide. 

29. Keeps, remains with. 

50. Beaver = the helmet. It meant etymologically only 
the front part of the helmet, that part which lets down to 
enable the wearer to drink. Lat. bibere, to drink. 

60. Pursuivant, an attendant upon a herald. 

64. Watch, a watch-light, a candle marked out into sec- 
tions, each of which was a certain portion of time in burning. 



194 NOTES. [act v. 

65. White Surrey. Hall mentions Richard's great white 
courser. 

66. My staves, the shafts of my lances. 

69. Richard applies the term melancholy to Northumber- 
land, because he knew he was only half-hearted in the cause. 

71. Cock-shut time, twilight; from the time when the cock- 
shut, that is, a large net used to catch woodcocks, used to be 
spread. 

82. Father-in-law, stepfather. 

87. Flaky, breaking up into flakes, through which the light 
is beginning to appear. 

89. Prepare your army in the order of battle. 

91. Mortal-staring, staring fatally on its victims. 

93. I will give as little help as I can to Richard during the 
battle. 

96. Tender George was at this time a married man. But 
Shakespeare followed the chroniclers, Hall and Holinshed. 

98. Leisure, the time at our command. Fearful, causing 

fear. 

106. Peise, weigh. 

111. Bruising irons of wrath, the heavy iron maces wielded 
in battle. 

125. Anointed, consecrated by unction at his coronation. 

133. Fulsome, nauseous. 

136. Fall = let fall. 

152. Cousins, nephews. See II. ii. 8 ; III. i. 2, and note on 
the latter passage. 

174. I died for wishing well to you, before I could give thee 
aid. 

181. The lights burn blue. This is invariable when spirits 
are present. 

198. Us'd, committed. 

200. Shall = will. 

218. Proof, in armor there is proof against weapons. 

230. Cried on, uttered the cry of. 

237. Enforcement, constraint. 

242. Except, excepted. Except here is a passive participle. 

247. Made means, contrived means. 

248. To help, of helping. 

249. A worthless stone, rendered valuable only by its set- 
ting—the throne of England. Foil, a bright colored leaf 

(L&t. folium, leaf) of metal on which a jewel is placed to set 
it off; hence, anything serving to give luster to another 
thing. 

253. Ward, guard, defend. 
257. Fat, wealth, means. 
261. Quit, requite. 

264-265, As for me, if I fail in my bold attempt, the atone- 
ment for my boldn«ss shall be my death. 



»c. iv.] NOTES. 195 

275. Tell, count. 

279. Brav'd, made brave, that is, splendid, glorious. 

280. Scan (Abbott) : 
Ratcliff! 

My lord ! 

The sun | will n6t | be seen | to-day. 

287. Bustle, be active. Caparison, put on his trappings.' 

291. Foreward, vanguard. 
298. Winged, supported on the wings. 

302. According to Hall, "The nyghte before he shoulde set 
forwarde towarde the kynge, one wrote on his gate : 
" lack of Norffolke, be not to bolde, 
For Dykon thy maister is bought and solde." 
312. Inferr'd, mentioned. 

314. Sort, a pack. 

315. Scum, refuse. Lackey, servile. 

316. O'er-cloyed, filled beyond satiety with them. 

320. Restrain, keep from us. Distain, stain, defile. 

321. Paltry, contemptible. 

322. At our mother's cost. This should be at our brother's 
cost. The speech closely follows Hall's Chronicle, where 
find the following passage: "And to begyn with the 
earle of Richmond, captaine of this rebellion, he is a 
Welsh mylkesoppe, a man of small courage and lesse expe- 
rience in marcyall actes and feates of war, brought up by my 
brother's means and myne, like a captiue in a close cage, in 
the court of Fraunces duke of Britaine." Holinshed copied 
from Hall, and in his second edition, by a printer's error, 
"brother's" was changed into "mother's," and Shakes- 
peare, having this edition in his hands, perpetuated the 
error. The brother in question was Richard's brother-in- 
law, Charles, Duke of Burgundy ; who maintained Richmond 
at the court of Francis, Duke of Brittany, in a kind of 
honorable custody. 

323. Milksop, an effeminate fellow. 

326. Overweening rags, presumptuous beggars. 

332. Bobb'd, drubbed. 

339. Fright the skies with the splintering of your lances. 
Welkin, A.-S. wolcnu, clouds, plural of wolcen, a cloud. 

341. Deny, refuse. 

348. Spleen, anger, as the spleen was supposed to be the 
seat of that passion. 

Scene 4. 

7. Wright notes that in the old play of The True Tragedy 
of King Richard the Third almost the only line having any- 
thing in common with Shakespeare is Richard's exclama- 
tion, " A horse, a horse, a fresh horse." 



196 NOTES. [act 5 

9. Cast, a throw of the dice. 

10. Hazard, the thing risked. 

11. Be is often used for are when some notion of doubt is 
involved, as in questions, and after verbs of thinking. 

Scene 5. 

4. Royalty, emblem of royalty, the crown. 

9. Scan {Abbott) : 

But tell | me/ | is young | George Stan | ley living ? 
The pause after me will explain the division. 

13-14. Great license is taken with the meter, whenever a 
list of names occurs. 

18. Ta'en the sacrament, sworn on the sacrament to do. 

23. Scarr'd, given herself scars or wounds. 

35. Abate, dull or blunt. 

36. Reduce, bring back. 



EXAMINATION PAPERS. 



1. Whence did Shakespeare derive the materials for this 
play ? Does it differ anywhere from known historical facts? 

2. Paraphrase, pointing out all allusions and grammatical 
peculiarities, and explaning fully : 

(a) The king, of his own royal disposition, 
And not provok'd by any suitor else ; 
Aiming, belike, at your interior hatred. 
That in your outward action shows itself 
Against my children, brothers, and myself,. 
Makes him to send ; that thereby he may gather 
The ground of your ill-will, and so remove it. 

—I. iii. 63-69. 

(b) Give me no help in lamentation ; 

I am not barren to bring forth complaints : 
All springs reduce their currents to mine eyes 
That I, being govern'd by the watery moon, 
May send forth plenteous tears to drown the world ! 

—II. ii. 66-70. 

3. Explain the following phrases: This sun of York; piping 
time of peace ; descant on mine own deformity ; I will unto the 
king ; defused infection of a man; frank' d up to fatting; too 
childish-foolish; and yet to win her, all the world to nothing ; 
elvish-mark d ; unvalued jewels ; duck with French nods; lewd 
complaints ; for Clarence is well-spoken ; the melancholy flood ; 
grim ferryman which poets write of; your eyes drop millstones ; 
by 'r lady ; seldom comes the better ; to set abroach; key-cold; 
staW d. 



198 EXAMINATION PAPERS. 

4. In what sense are the following words used : Inductions; 
gossips; cacodemon; basilisk's; costard; obsequiously; to jet; 
parlous; beholding; closet ; visor; cousin; aery; malapert; 
timeless; exclaims; heralds; cross-row. 

5. Illustrate from this play that some words were accented 
in Shakespeare's time nearer the beginning, and others 
nearer the end, than in modern usage. 

6. Give the etymology of alarum; caper; meufd; herald; 
livery ; hearse; gossip; naught; halberd; lewd; aery; shame- 
fast; closet. 



1. Contrast the character of Richard with that of Iago, 
and with that of Edmund in King Lear. 

2. Illustrate from the play the Elizabethan use of thou 
and you. 

3. Rewrite, in your own words, the following passages, 
with brief notes where required ; assign each passage to its 
proper speaker, and give a brief account of the context of 
each : 

(a) You are too senseless-obstinate, my lord, 
Too ceremonious and traditional : 
Weigh it but with the grossness of this age, 
You break not sanctuary in seizing him. 

—III. i. 44-47. 

(6) Know not whe'r to depart in silence 
Or bitterly to speak in your reproof 
Best fitteth my degree or your condition : 
If not to answer, you might haply think 
Tongue-tied ambition, not replying, yielded 
To bear the golden yoke of sovereignty, 
Which fondly you would here impose on me ; 
If to reprove you for this suit of yours, 
So season'd with your faithful love to me, 
Then, on the other side, I check'd my friends. 

—III. vii. 140-149. 

4. Explain the grammatical peculiarities of the words 
italicized in the following : The which will I ; I ivis your 



EXAMINATION PAPERS. 199 

gTandam had a better match ; God he knows ; I do not like 
the Tower, of any place ; they are, and wants but nomination ; 
mother to a many sons ; hear me a word ; men shall deal un- 
advisedly sometimes, which after- hours give leisure to 
repent ; thy garter, blemish'd, (hath) pawn'd his knightly 
virtue ; and, if I die, no soul shall pity me ; God wot ; I think 
there be six Richmonds in the field. 

5. Give the etymology of rood ; brat; beads; thrall; caitiff 
teen; boot ; garish; gramercy ; cozen; runagate ; welkin. 

6. Explain the allusions in the following passages :— 

( a ) Their woes are parcelVd, mine are general. —II. ii. 81. 

( &) "Welcome, sweet prince, to London, to your chamber. 

-III. i. 1. 

( c ) Prince. What say you, uncle ? 

Glo. I say, without characters fame lives long. 
Thus, like the formal vice. Iniquity, 
I moralize two meanings in one word. —III. i. 80-83. 

(d) For they account his head upon the bridge. —III. ii. 69. 

c. 

1. Give some account of the early editions of this play, and 
state at what period of his literary life Shakespeare wrote 
It, and what influences held most control over him at that 
time. 

2. What use has the poet made of rhyme in this play ? 

3. Explain the allusions in the following passages, particu- 
larly the words italicized : 

(a) Had you not come upon your cue, my lord, 

William Lord Hastings had pronounc'd your part. 

—III. iv. 26-27. 

(&) O Pomfret, Pomfret ! O thou bloody prison, 
Fatal and ominous to noble peers. —III. iii. 8-9. 

(c) What ! think you we are Turks, or infidels ? —III. v. 41. 

(d) Glo. Touch'd you the bastardy of Edward's children? 
Buck. I did ; with his contract with Lady Lucy, 

And his contract by deputy in France. —III. vii. 3-5. 



200 EXAMINA TION PA PEES. 

(e) Ah, Buckingham, now do I play the touch. —IV. ii. 8. 

(/) Buck. Why let it strike ? 

K. Rich. Because that,like a J«cA*,thou keep'stthe stroke 
Betwixt thy begging and my meditation. — I V.ii. 113-115. 

(g) There let him sink, and be the seas on him ! 

White-liver 'd runagate, what doth he there ?— IV.iv.461-462. 

(h) Why, then, All-Souls' Bay is my body's doomsday.— V.i.12. 

(i) I, as I may— that which I would I cannot,— 
With best advantage will deceive the time, 
And aid thee in this doubtful shock of arms. —V. iii. 92-94. 

(J) A base, foul stone, made precious by the foil 

Of England's chair, where he is falsely set. — V. iii. 249-250. 

(k) And who doth lead them but a paltry fellow. 

Long kept in Bretagne at our mother's cost. — V. iii. 321-322. 

4. In what sense are the following words used: Bightly ; 
expiate; limit; foot-cloth horse ; day-bed; visitation; empery ; 
thrall; pitch; cockatrice; pilVd; peise ; fire-new; at after- 
supper; but boot; index; garish; Humphrey Hour; attorney; 
Lethe; orient; cock-shut time ; a watch; welkin. 

5. Give some account of the history of the relative pronoun 
in English. 

6. Enumerate the whole series of the crimes ascribed to 
Richard by the dramatist, and discuss the probability of his 
guilt in each particular. 



A Text-Book on Rhetoric: 

Supplementing the development of the Science with Ex- 
haustive Practice in Composition. A Course of Prac 
tical Lessons adapted for use in High Schools and 
Academies and in the Lower Classes of Colleges. By 
Brainerd Kellogg, A.M., Professor of the English 
Language and Literature in the Brooklyn Collegiate 
and Polytechnic Institute, and one of the authors of 
Reed & Kellogg's "Graded Lessons in English," and 
"Higher Lessons in English." etc. 276 pages, 12mo, 
attractively bound in cloth. 

In preparing this work upon Rhetoric, the author's aim has been to 
write a practical text-book for High Schools, Academies, and the lower 
classes of Colleges, based upon the science rather than an exhaustive 
treatise upon the science itself. 

This work has grown up out of the belief that the rhetoric which 
the pupil needs is not that which lodges finally in the memory, but that 
which has worked its way down into his tongue and fingers, enabling 
him to speak and write the better for having studied it. The author be- 
lieves that the aim of the study should be to put the pupil in possession 
of an art, and that this can be done not by forcing the science into him 
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tongue and pen. Hence, all explanations of principles are followed by 
exhaustive practice in Composition— to this everything is made tribu- 
tary. 

When, therefore, under the head of Invention, the author is leading 
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the finding of the thought for themes ; when, under the head of Style, 
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when, under the head of Productions, he divides discourse into oral 
prose, written prose, and poetry, and these into their subdivisions, giv- 
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'sight of the fact that the pupil is to acquire an art, and that to attain 
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learned from the study of the theory. 

" Kellogg's Rhetoric is evidently the fruit of scholarship and 
large experience. Nothing is sacrificed to show; the book is intended for 
use, and the abundance of examples, together with the explicit and 
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its chief merits in the eyes of the thorough teacher."— Prof. Aloett 
S. Cook, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, Md. 

Published by CLARK & MAYNARD, New York. 



A Treatise on Physiology and Hygiene. 

For Educational Institutions and the General Reader. By Joseph C. 
Hutchison, M.D., President of the New York Pathological So- 
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Surgeon to the Brooklyn City Hospital ; and late President of the 
Medical Society of the State of New York. Fully Illustrated with 
numerous elegant Engravings. 12mo. 300 pages. 

1. The Plan of the Work is to present the leading facts and prin- 
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the same compass." — Prof. John Ordronaux, Professor of 
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the National Medical College, Washington, 1). C. 

The above work is the most popular work and most widely used text-book 
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A Text-Book on English Literature, 

Vith copious extracts from the leading authors, Englis.i 

and American. With full Instructions as to th? 

Method in which, these are to be studied. Adapted 

for use in Colleges, High Schools, Academies, etc. By 

Brainerd Kellogg, A.M., Professor of the English 

Language and Literature in the Brooklyn Collegiate 

and Polytechnic Institute, Author of a " Text-Book ot 

Rhetoric," and one of the Authors of Reed& Kellogg't 

" Graded Lessons in English," and " Higher Lessom 

in English." Handsomely printed. 12mo, 478 pp. 

e Book is divided into the following Periods : 

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Each Period is preceded by a Lesson containing a brief re- 
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Short estimates of the leading authors, made by the best 
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The author has endeavored to make a practical, common- 
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By Professor Jean Gustave Keete:ls. 

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A Text-Book on Commercial Law. 

A Manual of the Fundamental Principles Governing Busi- 
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The work is used in nearly all of the leading Commercial Col- 
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RECOMMENDATIONS. 

FromB. F. Moore, A.M., Pre*. Southern Business University, Atlanta, Ga. 
I find the work fully adapted for use in business schools as a text 
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Two-Book Series of Arithmetics. 

By James B. Thomson, LL.D., author of a 
Mathematical Course. 

1. FIRST LESSONS IN ARITHMETIC, Oral and 

Written. Fully and handsomely illustrated. For 
Primary Schools. 144 pp. 16mo, cloth. 

2. A COMPLETE GRADED ARITHMETIC, Oral 

and Written, upon the Inductive Method of Instruc- 
tion. For Schools and Academies. 400 pp. 12mo, cloth. 

This entirely new series of Arithmetics by Dr. Thomson 
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in two books. The following- embrace some of the characteris- 
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First Lessons.— This volume is intended for Primary 
Classes. It is divided into Six Sections, and each Section into 
Twenty Lessons. -These Sections cover the ground generally 
required in large cities for promotion from grade to grade. 

The book is handsomely illustrated. Oral and slate exercises 
are combined throughout. Addition and Subtraction are taught 
in connection, and also Multiplication and Division. This is be- 
lieved to be in accordance with the best methods of teaching 
these subjects. 

Complete Graded.— This book unites in one volume 
Oral and Written Arithmetic upon the inductive method of in- 
struction. Its aim is twofold : to develop the intellect of the 
pupil, and to prepare him for the actual business of life. In 
securing these objects, it takes the most direct road to a practi- 
cal knowledge of Arithmetic. 

The pupil is led by a few simple, appropriate examples to 
infer for himself the general principles upon which the opera- 
tions and rules depend, instead of taking them upon the author- 
ity of the author without explanation. He is thus taught to put 
the steps of particular solutions into a concise statement, or 
general formula. This method of developing principles is an 
important feature. 

It has been a cardinal point to make the explanations simple, 
the steps in the reasoning short and logical, and the definitions 
and rules brief, clear and comprehensive. 

Examples for Practice. Problems for Review, and Test Ques- 
tions are abundant in number and variety, and all are different 
from those in the author's Practical Arithmetic. 

Teachers and School Officers, who are dissatisfied with 
the Arithmetics they have in use, are invited to confer 
with the publishers. 



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LIBRARY 




